Austrian 'dungeon dad' Fritzl to go on trial from November 7

Vienna: Austrian Josef Fritzl, the man who held his daughter captive for 24 years in a dungeon cell in the basement of his house in Amstetten, Lower Austria, and fathered seven children with her, is due to go on trial from November 7, Austria's Public Prosecutor Gerald Sedlacek said on Saturday.

Fritzl is likely to be charged with rape and kidnapping as well as with murder or manslaughter, because he is suspected to have killed and disposed one of his daughter's - and also his - children by burning the corpse in a heating stove soon after birth.

Fritzl always claimed that his sexual actions towards his daughter did not constitute rape because they were "consensual".

He also said though he felt what he was doing during the last 24 years "was not right", it became a "normal behaviour" for him - leading a second life with his daughter in the cellar.

Horrific past

With the trial approaching, new rumours about Fritzl's horrific past emerged in the Austrian press during the last days. According to weekly magazine News and several other daily newspapers, Fritzl may also have kept his own mother locked up in the attic of his house for years.

The papers are referring to a leaked psychiatrist's bulletin in which Fritzl is quoted as saying that he had incarcerated his mother in a room with bricked-up windows until her death - soon after he put his daughter in the dungeon cell.

He did not specify for how long his mother was forced to vegetate in the entirely dark room, but newspapers are speculating it could have been for up to 20 years as well.

Speaking to Austrian psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner, Fritzl said he felt that his mother - who raised him alone after her divorce - "never loved" him, but beat and insulted him continuously during his childhood.

The only thing they used to do together was going to church each Sunday, Fritzl complained. He wanted to take revenge by imprisoning her in their own house, he added, according to the bulletin.

Apart from such confessions, Kastner declared Fritzl "sane and fit for trial" despite suffering from "a severe sexual disorder" and "a combined personality disorder".

She described Fritzl as a "volcano under a banal surface", "a narcissistic person who is enjoying to turn others into instruments to satisfy his own needs". By doing this, Fritzl turns into a "cold-blooded" and "calculating" person.

Public Prosecution declined to comment on the news, which apparently have leaked to the press from confidential sources.

Meanwhile, Fritzl's daughter, Elizabeth, and her six children have been undergoing extensive psychiatric treatment during the last months and are still kept at a secret location where they are trained to resume a normal existence under new identities in the future.