Josef Fritzl, the Austrian engineer accused of imprisoning his daughter beneath the family home for more than two decades and fathering her children, today pleaded guilty to incest but denied murder and enslavement.
Fritzl, 73, hid his face behind a blue folder and spoke to confirm his name as he appeared in the dock in St Pölten, around 40 miles east of the town of Amstetten, where he held his daughter Elisabeth, now 42, in a purpose-built dungeon for 24 years.
Speaking in a quiet voice, Fritzl pleaded guilty to four of the six charges he faces – incest, rape, coercion and false imprisonment.
Wearing a mismatched grey suit, dark shirt and striped tie, Fritzl was led into the courtroom at 9.30am flanked by six policemen and holding a blue folder with both hands up in front of his face to keep it hidden from media photographers.
He remained still and silent, ignoring questions from television crews before the judge and eight-person jury entered.
He put the folder on the desk in front of him only after camera crews were sent out at the start of the trial.
Kate Connolly on the trial of the Austrian engineer Link to this audio
Today offered the first chance for the press and public to get a live glimpse of the robust pensioner who has admitted to leading a complex double life, providing for an “upstairs” and a “downstairs” family without his wife, neighbours or authorities ever becoming suspicious enough to question his activities.
After the cameras were turned off, the 27-page indictment was read out by the state prosecutor, Christiane Burkheiser.
In her opening statement, Burkheiser described how, on 29 August 1984, Fritzl sedated his then 18-year-old daughter by putting a cloth over her nose and mouth and dragged her into the cellar. He then secured a chain around her stomach so she had no chance to escape. On the following day, he raped her. As she bore his children over the next 24 years, he repeatedly raped her in front of them, the court heard.
“It was his playground. He used her like a toy,” said Burkheiser.
She told the jury to imagine living underground in a damp space just 11 metres square (118 sq ft) – the same size as the jury bench – kitted out with just “a wash basin, a sleeping corner, no warm water, no shower, no heating, and worst of all, no daylight”.
The only air Elisabeth received was through the gaps in the wall, Burkheiser said.
The court heard that Fritzl didn’t talk to his daughter during her first few years in captivity and would punish her by shutting off electricity to the cellar for days.
Only after nine years was the cellar expanded.
Addressing the jury, Burkheiser said: “None of us can really imagine what it was like to be in that cellar. In the media you will already have heard a lot about this case. Some of these details are true, some of them are not. You are obliged to pay attention only to the truth. So please try and forget what you have read up ’til now. Push it to one side. During this trial you will be confronted by two sides of one story.”
She said Frizl might come across in the trial as “a nice old man from next door”. But she told the jury to be aware of the fact that he had not shown any signs of regret since his arrest in April last year.
The defence lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, appealed to the jury to be objective and not swayed by emotions. He insisted Fritzl was “not a monster”.
Addressing the jury, Mayer said: “You need to keep emotions out of this. Even with someone like him who has been described as a monster, it’s irrelevant if he is an unsympathetic character or a monster.”
Mayer described how Fritzl had managed to care for “two families” – “you cannot call someone who does that a monster”.
He added: “If you only want your daughter for sex you don’t want children. You would let them starve.”
Before the trial got under way, Mayer, said his client was nervous. “He told me, ‘I’m scared, Mr Mayer.’”
Tomorrow, on the second day of the trial, an eight-member jury will hear videotaped evidence from Elisabeth detailing her ordeal. The 11 hours of evidence was recorded last July so she would not have to see her father in court. Her brother Harald is expected to give evidence.
A no-fly zone has been established in the airspace over the courtroom to prevent media intrusion and escape attempts, and even the locks of the court have been changed to avoid security lapses.
Central to the trial is the accusation that Fritzl murdered, through neglect, a baby twin called Michael born to his daughter in the cellar in 1996. The boy had breathing difficulties and died when he was three days old. Prosecutors will argue that Fritzl could have saved his life if he had got medical help. Instead the baby died in his mother’s arms and Fritzl disposed of the corpse in an incinerator in his back yard.
If convicted of murder, Fritzl faces life imprisonment. If not, the maximum sentence he could expect to receive would be 15 years. According to legal experts he could potentially be out of prison in six and a half years, having already served a year in prison.
None of the three children who were born and brought up with their mother in the cellar, or the three who were taken upstairs to live with Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, will give evidence.
They have been given protection with their mother for the duration of the trial in the nearby psychiatric clinic where they were treated in the days and months after they were freed.
Doctors and counsellors will be on hand in court to assist anyone who finds the evidence too harrowing. Four replacement jurors will be available.
