Austrian prosecutors seek to block rapist Fritzl's move to regular prison

Reuters
·1 min read
1
FILE PHOTO: Defendant Fritzl is pictured during proceedings the last day of his trial at the court of law in Sankt Poelten

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian prosecutors have filed a complaint aimed at overturning a court decision last week that 88-year-old incestuous rapist Josef Fritzl should be moved to regular prison, a court spokesman said on Thursday.

The court in the town of Krems an der Donau west of Vienna ordered last week that Fritzl be transferred conditionally out of a prison psychiatric unit and into regular custody after a psychiatric assessment found he posed no threat of re-offending.

Fritzl, who has now changed his name to one not made public, raped his daughter as he held her captive for 24 years, fathering her seven children. The case attracted worldwide attention when it came to light in 2008.

He has been in a prison for "mentally abnormal" inmates since his conviction in 2009 for incest, rape, enslavement, coercion and the murder, by neglect, of his newborn son in a dungeon he secretly built under his house.

Prosecutors do not attend hearings like the one at which Fritzl's transfer was ordered last week, and since the court's decision is not technically a ruling, the recourse against it available to prosecutors is a complaint rather than an appeal, Krems provincial court spokesman Ferdinand Schuster said.

A higher court in Vienna will hear the complaint, he added.

The prosecutors' office in Krems was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Peter Graff)