200805081215 | Austrian Incest dad Fritzl agrees to talk

Austrian Incest dad Fritzl agrees to talk

Vienna - The man accused of imprisoning his daughter for 24 years, fathering her children and keeping them locked in a cellar agreed on Wednesday to further questioning, prosecutors said.

Josef Fritzl and prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser did not discuss allegations that he repeatedly raped his daughter over two decades and fathered her children, an official said. But he agreed during their roughly two-hour talk - Fritzl's first face-to-face meeting with a prosecutor - to provide further testimony, St Poelten prosecution spokesperson Gerhard Sedlacek said. Further questioning is not planned for at least two weeks, he said.

Authorities say Fritzl initially confessed, after news of the family's existence surfaced last month, to keeping daughter Elisabeth, now 42, and some of their seven children locked in a reinforced basement cellar.

But Fritzl, 73, who has not yet been charged, has not elaborated further on his earlier confession. Sedlacek said he provided the prosecutor on Wednesday with details about his background, including his professional career.

Gullibility

Justice Minister Maria Berger acknowledged that authorities may have shown a certain "gullibility" in accepting Fritzl's claim when Elisabeth first disappeared in 1984 that she had run away to join a cult.

"Today, one would certainly pursue this more precisely," Berger told Der Standard newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday.

Local authorities in Lower Austria province have maintained that they acted appropriately.

Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said his client had access to a television in jail and was closely watching coverage of his case.

Mayer said Fritzl was bothered by the fact that he was being made out to be a monster. He said Fritzl told him: "I'm only being portrayed as a monster and not as someone who committed monstrous acts."

Mayer made his comments when asked to confirm a report on Wednesday by the newspaper Oesterreich that quoted Fritzl as saying he was not a monster and that without him, his 19-year-old daughter Kerstin would no longer be alive.

Tightening laws

Berger told parliament that what happened to the Amstetten victims "couldn't be made right" and stressed the need to better shield children from sex abuse.

Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and Vice Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer announced plans to tighten laws for sex offenders.

"We will boost prevention because it is most important that criminal offenses are averted," Gusenbauer said.

Fritzl reportedly was convicted of rape in 1967. On Wednesday, Gusenbauer said the federal government considered it "completely inconceivable" that a convicted sex offender was able to adopt a child, and that such individuals would be allowed to do jobs involving contact with children and adolescents.