Incest father Fritzl visits cellar

Austrian Josef Fritzl has visited the cellar where he imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, Austrian police said.

Fritzl visited the cellar under police guard yesterday at the request of his lawyer, police chief Franz Polzer said.

Fritzl, who has been in investigative custody since the case was exposed in April, kept his daughter Elisabeth in a soundproofed basement under his house in the central Austrian town of Amstetten.

"They saw the prison, examined the locks, then they went back to court," Polzer said.

Fritzl has told police the locked door to the cellar would have opened automatically if he had been away for an extended period.

Prosecutors say they hope to bring charges against Fritzl in mid to late October. They are investigating him for coercion, rape, incest and the death of a child. Police say he has admitted incarceration and incest.

Three of the seven children born in the cellar were incarcerated with their mother, while another three were raised by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie as their own. One child died shortly after birth. The eldest child raised in the cellar recovered from an artificial coma in June.

Earlier this year Fritzl's lawyer said his client was "emotionally a broken man" and that it would be hard for him to get a fair trial in front of a jury because of the massive publicity generated by the case.