Josef Fritzl can be released to regular prison, court rules – in move that paves way for nursing home transfer
Josef Fritzl – who kept his daughter captive for 24 years, raped her thousands of times, and fathered seven children with her – can be moved to a regular prison, a court has ruled.
The 88-year-old Austrian – who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for crimes including incest, rape, and enslavement – has been in psychiatric detention in a high-security unit at Stein prison.
However, a three-judge regional court in northern Austria, ruled on Thursday that Fritzl, who now has dementia, can be moved to a regular prison as he no longer poses a danger.
The ruling, which paves the way for him to be released from prison into a nursing home, overturned an earlier decision from 2022 when his request to be moved to a regular prison was rejected.
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Who is Josef Fritzl?
According to the Austria Press Agency (APA), Fritzl will have to attend regular psychotherapy sessions and undergo psychiatric evaluations during a 10-year probation period at the prison.
The verdict is not yet legally binding and prosecutors have 14 days to submit an appeal, APA reported.
Josef Fritzl, pictured in 2009. Pic: Reuters
Fritzl’s lawyer, Astrid Wagner, told The Associated Press: “In summary, the court has come to the conclusion that it is indeed the case that he is no longer dangerous.”
Ms Wagner said she planned to submit such a request next year for Fritzl to be released from prison altogether.
‘Monster of Amstetten’
Fritzl became known as the “monster of Amstetten” after the northern Austrian town where he locked up his then 18-year-old daughter in a sound-proofed basement of his house in 1984.
The cellar room where Fritzl locked his daughter. Pic: Reuters/HO/Police Austria
Pic: Reuters/HO/Police Austria
Over the next 24 years, he repeatedly raped her and fathered seven children with her, one of whom died.
He claimed she had run off to join a cult, while Fritzl’s wife, who lived on the second floor of the home with the rest of the family, was allegedly unaware of what was going on in the basement, according to Austrian authorities.
Dungeon-like basement chamber
Fritzl had already been sexually abusing his daughter since she was 11.
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His crimes were revealed after his daughter re-emerged from the dungeon-like basement chamber in 2008 when one of his children with her became critically ill.
After Fritzl took the child to the hospital, police issued an appeal for the mother of the child to come forward.
The house in Amstetten, Austria – where Fritzl kept his daughter captive for 24 years. Pic: Reuters
The house where Josef Fritzl kept his daughter locked in a cellar. Pic: AP
Fritzl thought family would forgive him
Fritzl released his daughter from the cellar and the police were alerted to her reappearance, and she told them she had been held captive for more than two decades.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2009 for incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement, and the negligent homicide of one of his infant sons.
In 2023, Fritzl claimed in an interview that he thought his family would “forgive” him for his crimes and he would be “reunited” with them.
Fritzl’s daughter and her children have since taken on new identities.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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