Fritzl admits to working on the dungeon years before he imprisoned his daughter.

8 May 2008

Vienna - Josef Fritzl, 73, the Austrian man accused of sexually abusing his daughter and keeping her in a dungeon prison for 24 years, said he started working on the dungeon years in advance.

In comments carried by the weekly "News" on Thursday, Fritzl told his lawyer Robert Mayer that he started preparations on the concrete-enforced steel door, electronic locks and soundproof bunker "two, three years" before imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth, then 18, in 1984.

Mayer was not available to confirm the quotes.

He followed through his plans, because he wanted to keep his daughter from the outside world and have sex with her, the magazine quoted Fritzl.

"I knew that Elisabeth did not want what I was doing with her...but the desire to do the forbidden was too big," Fritzl said.

He said he had been looking forward to every of the six surviving children fathered by him and admitted he knew very well what he was doing.

"With every week I kept my daughter prisoner, the situation got crazier...I wondered if I should release her....I was afraid of being arrested," he was quoted as saying.

Fritzl said he knew that what he was doing was "wrong...that I had to be crazy that I was doing something like that".

But at the same time, the situation of having a second life in the basement became "normal" for him.

Fritzl kept Elisabeth and the three children incarcerated with her from attempting to escape by telling them they would be electrocuted if they touched the door.

Three other children grew up in the care of him and his wife, after telling authorities they had been abandoned by his daughter who had run off to a sect.

In another attempt to justify his deeds, he said a timer would have opened the dungeon, if something had happened to him. According to his lawyer, the alleged rapist now wants to atone for his crimes.

Meanwhile, police experts are continuing their investigation of the crime site. According to police chief Franz Polzer, the 1,000 square-metre grounds of the Fritzl family home in Amstetten will be examined with ground radar to check for possible further hollow spaces.

[dpa / Expatica]