Austria`s Fritzl To Be Tried On March 16

His lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said last year that Fritzl would not appeal against the charge sheet.

 Austrian Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children by her, will go on trial on March 16 on charges including murder, an Austrian court said on Thursday.

The trial, most of which will be closed to the public and the media to protect the victims, is scheduled to last for one week, said Franz Cutka, spokesman for the regional court of St Poelten, west of the capital Vienna.

Fritzl, 73, has been charged by prosecutors with the murder of one of his daughter's children who died shortly after birth. He is also charged with rape, enslavement, incest, coercion and deprivation of liberty.

His lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said last year that Fritzl would not appeal against the charge sheet.

Fritzl, in investigative custody since the case was exposed in April last year, kept daughter Elisabeth in a soundproofed basement under his house in the central Austrian town of Amstetten.

A psychiatric report commissioned by justice authorities last year declared Fritzl to be mentally fit for a trial. He faces life imprisonment if convicted of murder.