Dungeon dad to be charged 'within days'

London, Nov 11 : Austrian incest fiend Josef Fritzl is to be formally charged this week following authorities' announcement that the case against him was complete.

The 73-year-old, who imprisoned daughter Elisabeth, now 42, in a cellar for 24 years, and fathered seven children with her, will be told of the charges in the middle of this week.

Possible charges of kidnap, rape, causing permanent psychological harm and assisting death by negligence over a baby boy born with breathing difficulties and allowed to die have been examined by the prosecutors.

According to Dr Adelheid Kastner, Austria's leading psychologist, Fritzl has a personality disorder but was sane when he began his rape regime at his home in Amstetten, reports the Sun.

Fritzl had earlier revealed that he kept his ailing mother locked in an attic room with bricked-up windows until her death, according to leaked court reports.

The Austrian newspapers Kronen Zeitung and Osterreich had published accounts of Fritzl's interviews with a forensic psychiatrist in which he says he incarcerated his mother - who he blames for his actions - in the attic of her own house shortly before he locked up his daughter.

The retired engineer and property developer said it was revenge for the abuse he claims she inflicted upon him.

Fritzl's mother died in 1980. By then, Fritzl had begun building the concrete dungeon that would imprison his daughter, Elisabeth.

During Elisabeth's captivity, Fritzl fathered a total of seven children. One died shortly after birth and Fritzl disposed of the corpse by throwing it into a boiler.

Three children were sent upstairs shortly after birth and allowed to live "normal" lives. The rest were kept underground and raised without ever being allowed to see daylight.

ANI