Fritzl Taken to Prison To Serve Sentence

Josef Fritzl was taken to the Stein prison near Vienna where he will serve his sentence for imprisoning and sexually abusing his daughter.

Austrian Josef Fritzl who was sentenced to life in prison in mid-March for keeping his daughter captive in the cellar of his home for 24 years, during which time he sexually abused her and fathered her children, was on Wednesday transferred to a prison near Vienna where he will serve his sentence, the justice administration said. 

Fritzl, 74, was taken to the Stein prison in Krems-an-der-Donau, some 50 kilometres west of Vienna.

The court decided to place him in this jail, which is the largest in Austria and holds 805 convicts, because it has a hospital ward, “which could be important given the age of the prisoner”, the prison’s warden, Karl Drexler, said.

Also, the organisation of the prison is best suited to protect the incestuous father from possible attacks from other prisoners, he added.

Fritzl will be placed in a sector with 44 other inmates with cells for one or two people, intended for prisoners assessed as deviant, but aware of their actions at the time of the crime.