DNA tests confirm Fritzl fathered daughter's children

DNA tests showed that Austrian Josef Fritzl, who raped his daughter and kept her prisoner in a windowless cellar for 24 years, was the father of her six surviving children, police said yesterday.

Mr Fritzl has confessed to imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth in the cellar beneath their two-storey home and fathering seven children by her.

Prosecutors said they were investigating Mr Fritzl over the death of the seventh child and that he could face a charge of killing the child through neglect.

"The result... shows that the six children, which the unfortunate Elisabeth Fritzl gave birth to in the basement, have all been undoubtedly fathered by her own father, the now 73-year-old Josef Fritzl," Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigation unit in Lower Austria, told a news conference.

Police have said Mr Fritzl has admitted to burning the body of the seventh child when it died soon after birth.

"Josef F. is being investigated for murder by failing to render assistance," local chief public prosecutor Peter Ficenc said.

Investigations were also being conducted for rape, incest and coercion, Mr Ficenc said.

Investigators were still searching the 60-square-metre cellar beneath electrical engineer Mr Fritzl's home, Franz Prucher, head of security in Lower Austria said.

"Down there it is just chaos at the moment. We have to go over every detail very carefully," Mr Prucher said.

Mr Fritzl appeared before a judge in St Poelten, the provincial capital of Lower Austria, yesterday, who ordered that police could keep him in detention while inquiries continue.

Officials said Mr Fritzl said nothing on the advice of his lawyer. He was calm when he arrived on Monday and had been put in a cell where he can be monitored in case he tries to commit suicide, said Guenther Moerwald, head of St Poelten prison.