Experts condemn Fritzl's incest family reunion

London, May 19 : Authorities of the Austrian hospital where the family of incest monster Josef Fritzl are being treated have been severely panned the reunion of the two sets of siblings involved in the case.

Helene Klaar, a family law specialist in Vienna, challenged the decision by officials at the Amstetten-Mauer psychiatric hospital to reunite family members who Fritzl allegedly locked in his dungeon with those who led a normal life upstairs.

Despite claims from doctors that the family are interacting well and recovering faster than expected, Klaar has voiced fears that the decision to place all family members together could negatively influence their treatment.

"I have the impression that the doctors and therapists are reviving a family system that has proven to be damaging for Elisabeth Fritzl in the past," the Telegraph quoted Klaar, as saying.

"It is difficult to understand why must Elisabeth Fritzl now live with her mother, the same woman who never helped her as she was abused by her father," she added.

Fritzl is accused of imprisoning his daughter in his cellar for 24 years, regularly raping her and fathering seven children together.

Three of the children were allowed to live with Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie, while the other three remained incarcerated with their mother in the cellar dungeon.

One of the children, a baby boy called Michael, died shortly after birth and Fritzl burned his body in an incinerator.

The "upstairs family" - grandmother Rosemarie, and the children Lisa, 15, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12 - has now been placed together with the "dungeon family" - Stefan, 18, Felix, five, and their mother Elisabeth - in a local psychiatric clinic.

The oldest child, Kerstin, 19, is being treated for a mysterious illness at a different hospital, where doctors keep her in artificially induced coma.

However, this reunion has fuelled criticism among experts.

Eva Mueckstein, the president of the Austrian Association of Psychotherapists, said: "Placing the family together can only be the very fist step, until the beginning of the process of dealing with the conflicts within the family."

ANI