Josef Fritzl believes there will be ‘celebrations’ if he...

Josef Fritzl believes people will be ‘celebrating’ and queuing up to shake his hand if he is successful in his bid for freedom. The depraved rapist fathered seven children by his daughter Elisabeth while holding her captive as a sex slave in a dungeon he built under his home in Amstetten, Austria, for 24 years. His crimes horrified the world when they came to light in 2008. Now 89, he has been serving a life sentence in a prison unit for ‘mentally abnormal’ inmates since his conviction a year later.

Image Credit: Metro [Austrian Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for over 24 years and fathered seven children with her, is escorted back to a prison after his hearing at the regional court in Krems an der Donau, Austria on January 25, 2024. The reginal court in Krems, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of Vienna, approved the application of Fritzl to be transferred out of the jail he is currently in for the mentally ill who pose a high degree of danger, to a regular prison. Fritzl, now 88, was sentenced to life in prison in 2009 for the murder by neglect of a new-born baby he fathered with his daughter Elisabeth while holding her in the purpose-built basement of his house. (Photo by Joe Klamar / AFP) (Photo by JOE KLAMAR/AFP via Getty Images)]

Fritzl’s lawyer Astrid Wagner has said she will apply for parole next month and given his old age and frail health, she is optimistic he will be freed. Speaking to the Mirror, she said: ‘He believes that when he is released, he will come out to a big celebration with people cheering and music and wanting to shake his hand. ‘This is obviously not the case. It is a fantasy. I don’t think he fully understands what the world really thinks.’.

Image Credit: Metro [[Fritzl repeatedly raped his daughter Elisabeth (pictured), fathering seven incestuous children with her during her captivity][Three of the seven children were brought up by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie (pictured together), while three lived in the basement. The other died at birth.]]

Ms Wagner said Fritzl wants to move back to where he previously lived but added: ‘He would need a carer and none of his friends or family want to know.’. In January last year, a regional court ruled Fritzl no longer posed a threat to society and gave the green light for him to be transferred from a high-security prison to a regular jail. The transfer was seen as paving the way for his conditional release from prison altogether – something the three-judge panel said was unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Fritzl imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in the basement of the family home when she was 18. Three of the seven children he fathered with his daughter lived with her until they were freed in 2008. Fritzl and his wife fostered the other three surviving children after he claimed Elisabeth had given birth to them and then abandoned them to join a religious sect. He burnt the remains of the seventh child, who died shortly after birth, in the house furnace.

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