Incestuous Austrian expresses love for wife

LONDON - Josef Fritzl, the incestuous man from Austria who was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping his daughter and fathering seven children with her, has said he loves his wife and family and claimed that they too love him still.

According to British tabloid the Sun, the 75-year-old man stunned reporters by strolling into an interview room at Austria’s Stein jail and quipping: “Hello, I’m Josef Fritzl. But you know that, I am world-famous.”

Fritzl, who fathered seven children with daughter Elisabeth in 24 years he kept her locked in a dungeon, still refused to apologise for his barbarity.

He even expressed surprise that his letters to Elisabeth asking for cash had gone unanswered, the report said.

Asked if he regretted his crimes, Fritzl, who raped Elisabeth at least 3,000 times but showed no remorse at his trial in March last year, said: “I don’t want to talk about them.”

Instead he declared his love for wife Rosemarie, who has divorced him.

Fritzl was quoted as saying: “I wrote her eight letters. I never got an answer. But I know she loves me still. I have a fear that someone will steal her while I’m in here.

“My dream is that I will get out of here alive. I want to look after my wife again because she was always faithful to me.”

Fritzl has not been visited in prison by any of his 13 children. He said: “My children have obviously been turned away at the prison gates.”

Fritzl - who wore a brightly coloured shirt, jeans and sandals for the interview - is allowed to grow peppers and tomatoes in his cell and watch US television comedy show “Two And A Half Men”, the report said.

He said: “The kid in it reminds me of my son. It makes me break out laughing. It destroys the soul if one is always sad.”

Fritzl locked Elisabeth, now 43, in the dungeon basement at his home in Amstetten when she was 18, and told his wife that she had run away.

One of the seven babies he fathered with her died and he burned the body. Three others were locked up with their mother. The other three were raised by Rosemarie and Fritzl. He told his wife that he found them abandoned.

During his trial, Fritzl admitted rape, slavery, imprisonment and the negligent murder of the baby.