Austrian who imprisoned daughter discusses actions

FRANKFURT - Josef Fritzl, the 73-year-old Austrian who imprisoned and raped his daughter for nearly a quarter-century, said he knew his actions were wrong. But he denied he was a "beast," and said he thought constantly about freeing her from the underground vault where she was locked up, along with three of her seven children, whom he fathered.

In his first public comments since being arrested last month - relayed by his lawyer and published yesterday in an Austrian magazine - Fritzl offered a defense, by turns lurid and banal, of the indefensible. He also appeared to be laying the groundwork for a legal case based on his disturbed mental state.

"I constantly knew, during the entire 24 years, that what I did was not right, that I must have been crazy to do something like this," the magazine quoted Fritzl as saying to his lawyer, Rudolf Mayer. "With each week that I held my daughter captive," he said, "my situation got crazier."

Still, while admitting a lifetime of unfathomable abuse, Fritzl also painted a picture of depraved domesticity.

"When I went into the bunker, I brought flowers for my daughter, and books and stuffed animals for the children," he said. They watched adventure movies while his daughter, Elisabeth, cooked their favorite meals. "And then we all sat around the table and ate together," he said.

Mayer, who spoke to Fritzl at a prison where he is in pretrial detention, confirmed the comments. "He said them to me; I said them to the magazine," he said in a phone interview from Vienna.

Mayer said prosecutors had agreed to a psychiatric test to determine whether his client is mentally fit to stand trial. Fritzl has not yet been charged; he would face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of rape.

In his account, Fritzl describes himself as the product of Nazi-era Austria, with its mania for order and discipline, as well as of a domineering mother, whom he loved desperately. She did not sexually abuse him as a child, he said, though he admitted nourishing fantasies about her.

Later, Fritzl said, he got married and set about fulfilling a dream of having his own big family. He denied sexually abusing Elisabeth, starting at age of 11, as she has testified to investigators. "That's not true," he said. "I'm not a man who would abuse small children."

But as Elisabeth grew into a teenager, Fritzl said, he became alarmed when she began smoking, drinking, and staying out all night. "I tried to get her out of that swamp," he said, by arranging work for her as a waitress.

He also began digging the underground bunker that became her prison in 1984, when Fritzl drugged her and dragged her downstairs.

Fritzl, however, was unable to keep himself away from his daughter, who he said reminded him of his mother. "My drive to have sex with Elisabeth grew stronger and stronger," he said, describing it as an addiction. "I knew that Elisabeth didn't want me to do what I did to her. I knew that I was hurting her."

After she became pregnant, Fritzl brought towels, disinfectant, and diapers to help her through childbirth.

At the end of their session, Mayer asked Fritzl if he wanted to die. "No," he replied, "all I want to do now is repent."

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