Austrian man, who held daughter captive & fathered her 7 kids, sent to normal prison

An Austrian man who kept his daughter captive for 24 years, raped her thousands of times, and fathered seven of her children, can be moved from psychiatric detention to a normal prison under certain conditions, a court ruled Thursday.

Josef Fritzl, who is 88, will have to attend regular psychotherapy and undergo psychiatric evaluations during a 10-year probation period, Austria Press Agency reported.

A request to release him from prison was rejected.

His atrocious crime was revealed in 2008 and he was sentenced in 2009 to life imprisonment for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement and for the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.

Fritzl became known as the “monster of Amstetten” after the northern Austrian town where in 1984 he locked up his then 18-year-old daughter in the sound-proofed basement of his house.

Over the next 24 years, he raped her thousands of times and fathered seven children with her.

One of them soon died.

The wife, who lived on the second floor of the house with the rest of the family, was unaware of any of this, according to Austrian authorities.

When the case came to light in 2008, it made headlines around the world.

A three-judge regional court in the town of Krems ruled Wednesday that Fritzl, who is now demented, could be moved to a regular prison because based on a psychiatric assessment he no longer posed a danger.

It overturned an earlier decision from 2022 when Fritzl's request to be moved to a normal prison was rejected.

“In summary, the court has come to the conclusion that it is indeed the case that he is no longer dangerous," Fritzl's lawyer Astrid Wagner told The Associated Press.

Wednesday's verdict is not yet legally binding.

Prosecutors have 14 days to lodge an appeal, APA reported.