Lawyer demands transfer of Austrian man who raped and enslaved his daughter to a nursing home because he is “no longer a threat”

The lawyer of Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl, who held his own daughter captive for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, is requesting his release from prison.

Astrid Wagner told Sky News on Tuesday she hoped to be able to move him to a care home.

Fritzl, now 88, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for killing one of his children through neglect and for raping, committing incest and enslaving his daughter.

Who is Josef Fritzl?

According to a new psychiatric report, Fritzl, who suffers from dementia, no longer poses a danger to the public, reported Austrian public broadcaster ORF. Therefore, a court can now decide whether he should be transferred to a regular prison.

However, his lawyer believes he should be released from prison and said she is in the process of requesting his conditional release.

In 2008, Fritzl’s daughter Elisabeth, then 42 years old, told police that she had been held captive for years by her violent father.

In 1984, he lured Elisabeth, then 18 years old, into the basement of the family home in Amstetten and told everyone, including his wife, that she had run away and joined a cult.

He had been sexually abusing her since she was eleven years old.

His crimes only came to light when one of his children became seriously ill.

After Fritzl took her to the hospital, the police called on Elisabeth to come forward.

Fritzl released Elisabeth from the basement. When she resurfaced, the police were notified. Elisabeth told them that she had been held captive for more than two decades.

In an interview with ORF on Monday, Ms Wagner said her client had a right to be treated with human dignity, which was only possible in a nursing home and not in a prison.

She pointed to his physical and cognitive decline and said he suffered from “distortions of reality” although he was “not severely demented.”

She is convinced that Fritzl feels “honest, genuine, deep remorse” because he “destroyed his beautiful life by doing something to his family.”

Fritzl is being held in a high-security unit for mentally disturbed offenders at Stein Prison in the town of Krems in northeastern Austria.

Under Austrian law, anyone sentenced to life imprisonment is entitled to parole after 15 years. Fritzl, who was arrested in 2008, reached that mark in 2023.

In 2023, Fritzl claimed in an interview that he believed his Family would “forgive” him for his crimes and he would be “reunited” with them.

He told The Sun that he was a fan of King Charles and watched the coronation on television.