Josef Fritzl could be FREED as he undergoes psychiatric tests after 15 years in jail for keeping daughter as sex slave
DUNGEON monster Josef Fritzl is undergoing psychiatric tests and could be freed from jail after serving 15 years for keeping his own daughter as a sex slave.
The evil rapist, 86, fathered seven children with his captive daughter Elisabeth who he raped repeatedly between 1984 and 2008 in a bunker under his home in Amstetten, Austria.
Fritzl is currently serving a life sentence after he was jailed in 2009 but he will soon be eligible to apply for early release.
If he is allowed to walk free, he will have spent nine years less in captivity than Elisabeth when she was a prisoner of his basement dungeon.
In autumn, the Regional Court of Krems in Lower Austria decided that it would move Fritzl from the prison system for mentally abnormal lawbreakers to the regular jail.
This, in turn, would mean that after having served 15 years of his sentence, he would be able to apply for early release.
But the public prosecutor's office was opposed to this plan and immediately appealed the decision.
Now, the Higher Regional Court has taken over the case and appointed an expert to examine the infamous rapist in a bid to determine his psychiatric condition.
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If the expert detects any abnormalities, Fritzl will have to remain in the prison system and will not be eligible to ask for early release.
But if the expert deems that he is of sound mind, then the Austrian could be released from prison.
The decision is expected by the end of January.
Fritzl fathered seven kids with Elisabeth in the small cellar beneath his home where he installed living quarters including a kitchen and bathroom.
While one child died shortly after birth, and was incinerated by the monster, three of the other kids were brought upstairs to live with him and his wife Rosemarie.
Fritzl told Rosemarie the children belonged to Elisabeth, and had been left on their doorstep as she was unable to care for them.
RAPE MONSTER
The three remaining children were kept in the windowless cellar – aged five to 19 when released – and would first see sunlight in 2008.
Fritzl’s crimes were uncovered when the oldest cellar child, a 19-year-old girl, became seriously ill.
Elisabeth begged her dad to take the girl, Kerstin, to hospital, but doctors quickly alerted cops after questioning the teen - who had never been in the outside world before.
In 2009, Fritzl was jailed for life after pleading guilty to murder by negligence over the death of the baby he cremated.
The other charges included enslavement, incest, rape, coercion and false imprisonment.