Fritzl pleads guilty to house of horror rapes

Josef Fritzl used his daughter as a "toy", an Austrian court heard yesterday after the 73-year-old admitted imprisoning her in an underground bunker for 24 years and forcing her to bear seven children.

But the Austrian engineer, who set up a house of horror with electrically controlled doors to stop Elisabeth Fritzl and her children from escaping, denied slavery and a murder charge over the death of one of the incest babies.

The white-haired Fritzl, dressed in a grey suit, entered the court shielding his face with a blue document which he kept in place until the hearing started.

He later told the court that he had had a "very difficult childhood."

Police sat on either side of Fritzl and others stood in front of the public gallery as maximum security was imposed for the week of hearings. Several protesters were outside the court house, some carrying baby dolls smeared in fake blood.

It was Mr Fritzl's first appearance in public since the shocking case broke on April 26 last year after the eldest child, Kerstin, 19, who had lived her entire life underground with two brothers and her mother, fell severely ill and had to be hospitalised.

In her opening statement, chief prosecutor Christiane Burkhauser described Mr Fritzl's crimes as "inconceivable."

He "showed no sign of regret or any consciousness of wrongdoing," she said.

"Josef Fritzl treated his daughter as his property, he made her completely dependent," Ms Burkheiser added.

"He decided what kind of food was brought into the dungeon. He decided when food was brought. And food was also often scarce."

"He used her as a toy," said the prosecutor, referring to the repeated rapes.

Mr Fritzl admitted rape, incest, sequestration and grievous assault for keeping Elisabeth as captive for a quarter of a century and fathering her seven children, replying with a simple "yes" to the question as to whether he pleaded guilty.

He faces a prison term of up to 15 years on these charges.

But he lodged a plea of "not guilty" to a murder charge which carries a life sentence. Prosecutors accuse him of having failed to seek medical aid for one of the babies who died just after birth in 1996.

Mr Fritzl told police the baby was still-born and he burnt the body in a boiler in the cellar.

Mr Fritzl likewise pleaded not guilty to a charge of slavery as the trial started in Sankt Poelten, some 60 kilometres from Amstetten, where the family lived. It is the first time such a charge has been brought in Austria.

Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, was first locked in her dungeon on August 29, 1984.

"I went down there twice and there's a morbid atmosphere," said Ms Burkheiser. "It's damp, it's musty, it's mouldy."

The cellar, gradually expanded to 40 square metres, had no heating, no hot water, no fresh air or sunlight.