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03. 11. 08. - 07:00

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03. 11. 08. - 07:00

Terrified Fritzl to share jail with brain-eating cannibal

Incest dad Josef Fritzl is terrified of his upcoming trial after learning he would have to serve his sentence in a high security mental asylum.

His jail mates will include teenage cannibal killer Robert Ackermann whose last victim was also a sex pervert. Ackerman, who was 19 at the time, munched on the brains of Austrian-born Josef Schweiger, 49, for two days before the body was found by a cleaner at a hostel in Vienna.

One warder at the St Pölten jail where Fritzl is currently held said: "People in here for anything involving abusing children always get a hard time from the other inmates. They used to bang on his cell and shout ‘Satan - come out and play’. Now they bang on his cell and shout Ackerman is going to eat your brains."

Fritzl's trial is set to take place in February after Court officials have been given the psychiatric report which was the last piece of evidence they had been waiting for. The report by Doctor Adelheid Kastner concludes that Fritzl was sane and fully responsible for his actions when he imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and raped her repeatedly, forcing her to have seven children underground.

The conclusion means he will be tried in a regular court. But a psychiatric report also recommends that if convicted he is locked up in a high security hospital for the psychologically disturbed.

In Austria there is only one such place, the high security mental asylum at Goellersdorf where Austria's cannibal killer is also incarcerated.

Staff at the institution are also unhappy about learning that Fritzl will end up there if, as is certain to be the case, he is convicted.

Spokesman Johann Winkelbauer said: "From the end of the year our budget is set to be cut massively and we are unlikely to lose 15 psychiatrists and face other cutbacks." He warned it was already difficult to guarantee the safety and well-being of those inside and that further cuts would make it almost impossible.

Fritzl is hoping he will not be jailed for more than 10 years -- the maximum he can face for rape in Austria -- and is still entertaining ideas that he might eventually be released. But the thought of spending that time with mental patients instead of in a regular jail has left him terrified.

He has already spent more than a year in jail for a previous rape conviction and has also settled into a routine in the jail in St Pölten where he's been since his arrest in April.

Austrian Times

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