An Austrian man who fathered seven children with a daughter he held in a cellar for 24 years pleaded guilty to incest on Monday but denied murdering their newborn son. Josef Fritzl, 73, entered court in St Poelten, near Vienna, flanked by policemen and concealing his face behind a blue folder. He later lowered the folder and, staring straight ahead, his back to the gallery, spoke softly, sometimes mumbling, in response to questions about personal details and his plea. Fritzl pleaded “partially” guilty to rape - understood by reporters to mean he is contesting the way the charge is worded - and said he was guilty of depriving the children who were kept underground of their liberty. He pleaded innocent to a charge of enslaving his daughter Elisabeth for most of her life. Prosecutors said Fritzl, who faces life in prison if convicted, was responsible for the death of a twin who died shortly after being born in the cellar in 1996. They said this was murder by neglect because Fritzl failed to seek help for the baby, whose body he burnt in a furnace. “He shut (Elisabeth) away in the cellar and made her totally dependent on him, forcing her into sexual acts and treating her as if she was his own property,” his charge sheet read. A verdict is expected by Friday. Fritzl's childhood In a trembling voice Fritzl told the court that he had a “difficult childhood.” “My mother didn't want me. She was 42 when she had me,” he said. She never showed him any affection and his father appeared only “rarely and sporadically.” Fritzl attributed his mother's coldness to her own childhood. “Her life wasn't the best, either,” he said. “She grew up on a farm and had to work from the age of eight.” Soundproof dungeon Fritzl, an engineer, built the soundproofed cellar with a reinforced door under his home in the provincial town of Amstetten. In an opening statement, prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser said that in the first three years of Elisabeth's incarceration there was no hot water, shower or heating. It was sometimes so hot that condensation dripped the down walls, she said. Defense lawyer Rudolf Mayer said the charge of enslavement was inappropriate. He described how Fritzl “brought up a second family” and criticized his media portrayal as a “monster,” urging the jury to set emotions aside to enable a fair trial. He said Fritzl had shown he was concerned for the children's welfare by taking some of them out of the cellar and his seriously ill daughter, Kerstin, 19, to hospital. Kerstin had never seen daylight and her hospital trip led to Fritzl's arrest in April last year. Outside the courtroom Crowds were already on site in the early hours as foreign camera crews roamed about and reporters interviewed each other ahead of Fritzl's arrival. A man in a lab coat adorned with a dozen baby dolls and fake blood dripping from his mouth made a show of leading a young woman in a party dress silently through the crowd as music by Wagner blared in the background. In a corner, a small group from the far-right National People's Party carried a banner urging “Protect our Children,” while another cluster called Resistance for Peace laid out signs that read “Shame on Austria.”
