ST POELTEN (Austria), March 18: Austrian Josef Fritzl reversed his plea and admitted guilt on all charges on Wednesday after watching the daughter he locked up and raped for 24 years describe her ordeal in 11 hours of video testimony.

Fritzl, 73, who fathered seven children with daughter Elisabeth, admitted enslaving her and murdering one of their babies by neglecting to seek medical treatment. He now faces the rest of his life behind bars.

“I plead guilty to (all) the charges in the indictment,” he told the judge clearly and carefully. This included murder of the infant in the purpose-built, soundproofed cellar under his small-town home.

His turnabout also altered his plea from “partial” to full guilt on the charge of rape. Fritzl had earlier admitted incest but denied murder and enslavement, the two gravest charges, at Monday’s outset of the trial in St Poelten, west of Vienna.Defence lawyer Rudolf Mayer told reporters he was “completely surprised” by Fritzl’s plea change but said his client may have been overcome by Elisabeth’s detailed statement, shown at closed-door proceedings on Tuesday.

“I believe that he has been really shaken,” Mayer told reporters shortly after Fritzl’s surprise plea reversal. “He saw his daughter on the video for the first time and I think that this could have brought about the change.”

The trial was due to finish on Thursday, with sentencing the same day. “My client expects life imprisonment and after that, confinement to a closed (mental) institution,” Mayer said.

Fritzl admitted guilt for murder of the baby son, a twin, who died shortly after being born in the cellar in 1996.

Responding to questions from Judge Andrea Humer, Fritzl said he should have taken seriously the fact that the infant was breathing poorly and tried to get the boy to a hospital quickly.

“I was hoping the little one would survive but I should have done something. I don’t know why I didn’t help. I just lost sight (of the issue),” he said.

Prosecutors said Fritzl repeatedly raped his daughter before the eyes of their children, trapped under his house in the small central town of Amstetten, using her as if she were his own property. The captive children had never seen daylight.

“The basic need was for power. It is about domination, about power, about control,” psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner, who assessed Fritzl before the trial, told the court in her testimony about Fritzl’s sexuality.

“He is aware of his evil side.”

Entering court on Wednesday, Fritzl did not hide his face behind a blue file folder as he had on the previous two days. He once again wore a mismatched, rumpled grey suit.

He kept his eyes downcast or gazed straight ahead during the proceeding, as if disregarding what was going on around him.

Austrian daily Kurier reported Elisabeth had attended the trial unnoticed on Tuesday, when the media was barred from proceedings. Mayer declined to comment but said there were people in the viewing gallery whom he did not identify.

“If Elisabeth were in the courtroom then I think that this would have really shaken him up,” he told reporters.
Mayer testified earlier that his client cared for the daughter and children he incarcerated “like a second family”, providing them with schoolbooks, toys and even a Christmas tree.

But Mayer also described Fritzl’s crimes as “monstrous”.

His abuses came to light last April when he took 19-year-old Kerstin, the eldest child born below ground, to hospital after she became seriously ill.

Elisabeth and her six children, three of whom were incarcerated from birth, are now living in an undisclosed location under new identities. Three of the children were raised above ground by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie after he told people that Elisabeth had abandoned them.—Reuters