Josef Fritzl, a 73-year-old Austrian who locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, expects to spend the rest of his life in jail, his lawyer said on Friday.
Fritzl goes on trial in a provincial court on March 16 for the murder of a child who died shortly after being born in the cellar, as well as five other charges including incest.
“He is 73 years old. The [length of] the sentence is of no importance to him,” Fritzl’s lawyer Rudolf Mayer told Austrian state news agency APA, adding that his client expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Fritzl has not appealed the charges.
He will plead guilty to the charges of deprivation of liberty, rape, incest and coercion but will contest the murder charge, Mayer said. Fritzl faces up to life imprisonment if convicted on all charges.
But Mayer insisted Friday that Fritzl is “no sex monster,” and says the suspect loved his daughter “in his own way.”
State prosecutors say Fritzl could serve 10 to 15 years or a life sentence in prison. The trial’s verdict is expected on March 20. He has been in investigative custody since the case was exposed last April.
Fritzl lured his daughter into the cellar of his house in Amstetten in 1984, drugging and locking her up for most of her adult life, police said. He claimed she had disappeared to join a sect.
Elisabeth and her children are now living in a secret location under new identities.
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