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RSS Feed General News03. 11. 09. - 16:00
Fritzl not suicidal, shrink claims
By Thomas Hochwarter
Incest monster Josef Fritzl will not commit suicide because he wants to "take responsibility" for his crimes, a leading psychiatrist has claimed.
Adelheid Kastner – who told judges at Fritzl’s trial earlier this year he was sane when he kept his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years in an underground cellar – said: "Fritzl crossed so many borders but he has some nevertheless. He would never commit suicide as he has got certain ideas of justice. He now wants to take responsibility for his crimes."
The statement comes after recent media reports in which fellow inmates claimed Fritzl was being kept under 24-hour surveillance over fears he could take his own life.
Speaking to magazine News Kastner, who has released a book "Täter - Väter. Väter als Täter am eigenen Kind" (Offenders – Fathers) in German by Ueberreuter about fathers who abuse their children, also claimed the 74-year-old was "no murderer in the classical sense".
Kastner explained: "Fritzl accepted the death of one of his children, but he was probably not able to deliberately plan the death of a human. He did not cross this border as he regarded it as a taboo not to be breached."
Fritzl incinerated the body of one of the seven children his daughter Elisabeth – aged 43 today – gave birth to in the man-made cellar dungeon under the family home in Amstetten, Lower Austria.
Fritzl was jailed for life after admitting to rape, incest, murder and enslavement.
The case was regarded as one of the darkest chapters of post-war Austrian history.
Kastner rubbished Fritzl’s claims he acted purely based on a horrible childhood shaped by a cruel mother, stressing he "always had the choice" what to do with his life. "He was not legally insane at any point," she said.
Asked what the motives of offender fathers like Fritzl were, Kastner said: "The main ground for their action is taking revenge on their wives – by attacking or abusing what they love the most: their children."
The Fritzl family story is one of the most shocking told in the book by Kastner. In it, she tells the story in form of a fairytale with Fritzl being a wolf child who tries to be a good son but feels the urge to live out the evil part of his soul.
Kastner warned the majority of Austrian children were victims of domestic violence.
"It is a fact that ten per cent of children in Austria are regularly abused massively, while 60 per cent are victims of what is regarded as ‘normal domestic violence’. More than half of boys and girls living in Austria get beaten up by their parents."
"Violence against children is ignored much too often. When someone hits his or her child in public, people tend to look away while it is much more likely incidents in which someone touches a child in a ‘wrong’ place get reported to police," she claimed.
- - -
Adelheid Kastner: Täter - Väter. Väter als Täter am eigenen Kind
published by Ueberreuter (www.ueberreuter.at)
hard cover, 200 pages
ISBN: 978-3800074358
Austrian Times
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