Austrian Josef Fritzl, sentenced to life in prison for the kidnapping and rape of his daughter, was given the right to leave the high-security unit where he is being held, according to a court ruling on Thursday.
“The court has come to the conclusion that he no longer poses any danger,” his lawyer Astrid Wagner told the press after 15 years behind bars after a closed-door hearing in the town of Krems, 80 km northwest of Vienna, where he was is locked up.
The judges based their decision on a psychiatric report, she explained, citing her advanced age (88 years) and the onset of dementia.
“This is an important first step. He must now be taken to the traditional detention center and be examined regularly,” the lawyer added, adding that her client was “very moved.”
Once his transfer is effective, he can then apply for probation, said Mr. Wagner, who plans to do so next year.
A court spokesman confirmed this decision, which can still be appealed by the public prosecutor.
The inmate arrived in a police vehicle that pulled into a garage at the back of the building, with photographers catching a glimpse of his face hidden behind his hands.
The electrician, convicted in March 2009, was arrested a year earlier after one of the seven children born from the incestuous relationship with his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl was hospitalized.
The latter was kidnapped and raped from 1984 to 2008 in a cellar bunker set up in the basement of the family property in Amstetten.
During all these years, Josef Fritzl continued to live in the pavilion with his wife Rosemarie, who the judges concluded never knew anything about as she was convinced that her daughter had joined a cult.
In 2013, in the small town where the tragedy occurred, 100 km from Vienna, the authorities blocked off the “basement of horror” with concrete, a necessary prerequisite for the house to be put up for sale.
Elisabeth Fritzl, now 56, moved to an unknown location with her children under a new name in order to rebuild her life in anonymity.
Josef Fritzl, who threatened to gas the entire family if any of its members escaped, never expressed remorse. However, according to his lawyer, “he thinks about his actions day and night.”