Josef Fritzl set to die in his jail cell after losing latest bid for freedom

Josef Fritzl set to die in his jail cell after losing latest bid for freedom EXCLUSIVE: Rapist fails in bid for freedom but his lawyer says she will fight on to get him out of prison Evil rapist Josef Fritzl, who locked his daughter in a dungeon for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, was yesterday denied freedom for a third time. This means the incest monster, now 91, who repeatedly raped his own daughter and left one of their babies to die, now faces spending the rest of his life behind bars. Austrian judges yesterday rejected his latest bid for early release despite medical evidence that the notorious predator is suffering from advanced stages of dementia and is no longer considered dangerous. But his lawyer Astrid Wagner, who has faced death threats for defending him, has vowed to continue fighting for his freedom. She told the Mirror: “This is about justice. This is Austria. And here we must apply the rule of law - Austrian law. “No one is challenging what my client did in the past. But he has served his sentence. And he has both apologised for these crimes and also undergone therapy and complied with all conditions placed upon him. “One doesn’t just have the right to suspend the provisions of Austrian law just because of what one might feel about a person because of their crimes. “And this makes clear that Josef Fritzl also deserves and is entitled by law to a second chance.” Wagner says she is preparing yet another attempt to secure his release in 2027. Fritzl was jailed for life in 2009 after the world was horrified to discover how he had turned the cellar beneath his family home in Amstetten, Austria, into a dark, dank, secret underground dungeon where he subjected his daughter Elisabeth to almost unimaginable suffering. She was just 18 when her father lured her into the cellar in August 1984, drugged her and locked her behind a complex series of locks and reinforced doors. He then held her captive for 24 years, repeatedly raping her while the rest of the family lived upstairs, unaware of the full horror unfolding beneath their feet. The cellar had no windows and was concealed behind a hidden entrance, leaving Elisabeth completely dependent on her twisted father for food, clothing and contact with the outside world. During her captivity, she gave birth to seven children fathered by her father, Fritzl. Three were kept imprisoned underground with their mother, never experiencing ordinary life outside the cellar. Three others were taken upstairs and raised by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie, who had been told that Elisabeth had run away to join a religious sect and abandoned her children. Fritzl maintained the heinous deception for years, even forging letters supposedly written by his captive daughter. But the dark horror went further. One of the babies, a newborn boy named Michael, died in 1996 after developing serious breathing difficulties. Rather than obtain urgent medical treatment, Fritzl allowed the infant to die. He then disposed of the baby’s body in a furnace. It was this death that led to Fritzl’s conviction for murder by neglect, alongside rape, enslavement, false imprisonment and other offences. His monstrous and chilling crimes were finally exposed in April 2008 when his eldest daughter by Elisabeth, Kerstin, became seriously ill. Fritzl eventually allowed the 19-year-old to be taken to hospital, triggering questions from doctors and police that brought his decades of extensive and unfathomable abuse crashing down around him. Elisabeth and her children were finally rescued after 24 years of captivity. Fritzl was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment and initially placed in a secure psychiatric institution. Nearly 18 years after his crimes were exposed, the man responsible for one of the most horrific cases of sexual abuse in modern European history is desperately trying to secure his freedom. But now the court has rejected his third application for conditional release. Judges ruled that the elderly prisoner has no suitable home, no family willing to support him and nobody capable of providing the extensive care he now requires. His relatives have severed contact with him, leaving the once-dominant family tyrant completely isolated. The court concluded that releasing him would be impractical because he has no secure social network or realistic prospect of living independently. Instead, he remains in the medical wing of Stein Prison in Krems, Lower Austria, where officials say he continues to receive medical treatment and nursing care. His lawyer Dr Wagner says the court ruling comes despite extraordinary psychiatric evidence suggesting that the once-dangerous sexual predator has deteriorated so severely that his former personality has “effectively disappeared.” Renowned forensic psychiatrist Heidi Kastner also concluded that Fritzl is suffering from progressive dementia which has profoundly damaged his mental faculties. According to the assessment cited by his defence, this means “his ability to plan crimes and his sexual drive have disappeared, and he is not dangerous.” Fritzl has also suffered severe physical deterioration and now requires nursing care. But despite this evidence presented by the defence the court was unconvinced that his failing health justified releasing him into a world where nobody was prepared to look after him. Dr Wagner has repeatedly claimed that keeping the elderly offender imprisoned serves little purpose given his present condition and is also a breach of his rights, and could push him towards suicide. But this has sometimes provoked public outrage and exposed her to fierce criticism, including death threats.