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VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian police have arrested a man they believe imprisoned his daughter in a windowless basement for 24 years, abused her and fathered seven children with her.

Police said the woman, identified as 42-year-old Elisabeth F, told them her father Josef had lured her into the basement of the block where they lived in the town of Amstetten in 1984, and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

Three of her children were locked up since birth in the basement of the drab, grey building along with their mother and had never seen sunlight or received any education, police said.

Authorities in Amstetten, 130 km (80 miles) west of Vienna, were still piecing together details of the case, reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a windowless cell before escaping in August 2006.

"We are faced with a crime that is incomprehensible," Interior Minister Guenther Platter said on Austrian television. "Everything that has happened here goes beyond one's imagination."

Josef, a 73-year-old electrical engineering technician by training, told investigators how to enter the basement prison through a hidden door operated by secret code, police said.

"There was a shelf with plenty of cans and containers, and behind the shelf was a door made of reinforced concrete, secured electronically and running on steel rails, and only the suspect knew the code," said local official Heinz Lenze.

The hideout itself was a sophisticated network of chambers with facilities for sleeping, cooking and washing, Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria, told broadcaster ORF.

WIFE UNAWARE

Josef's wife Rosemarie had been unaware of what happened to her daughter and it was assumed Elisabeth had disappeared voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.

Elisabeth gave birth to seven children during her ordeal, one of whom died shortly after being born, police said.

Three of the younger children were brought up by Josef and his wife after they were left at the building, the first child accompanied by a note from Elisabeth saying she was unable to care for the baby herself.

Three others, including the two eldest aged 18 and 19, and the youngest, aged 5, had been locked up in the basement with their mother since birth.

The case only came to light when the oldest child became seriously ill and was taken to hospital in Amstetten. Josef said that child had also been left unconscious on his doorstep, according to media reports.

A 19-year-old girl, who was seriously ill and is still fighting for her life, was last weekend dropped off at the hospital in Amstetten.

Doctors appealed for the girl's mother, who at that time was believed to have disappeared, to come forward to provide more details about the daughter's medical history.

Josef then brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the basement, telling his wife that their "missing" daughter had chosen to return home, police said.

"This is not a mother abandoning her child which then had to be admitted to hospital in a serious condition ... We know that she herself has been kept imprisoned by her own father for 24 years in the basement and furthermore she obviously was also subjected to sexual abuse," Polzer said.

After questioning and assurances that she would have no further contact with her father -- who she said abused her from the age of 11 -- Elisabeth agreed to make a "comprehensive statement."

"It is so horrible, I can see the house from my balcony and from my window and when I think now of who was in there, I can simply not imagine that," neighbor Corina Schmid told ORF.

"I spoke to (Rosemarie) at Christmas, and she told me they didn't know where the daughter was, she had simply vanished," neighbor Margarete Gollonitsch said as onlookers gathered in the street outside the three-storey building and investigators in white suits continued their search of the premises.

Rosemarie, as well as Elisabeth and her children were receiving psychological counseling. DNA samples of all those involved were taken and would be analyzed, police said.

(Writing by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Vienna is that in Arkansas

The title forgot to include the most disturbing part. The father fathered 7 children with his daughter.

How soon until HK Immigrant Boy (or whatever his current alias) comments on how this is a reflection on the "evil of all white people"?

You should know. You are HK immigrant boy and FVS!

I heard about this on the news. What a sickening story. Poor woman! That man should be executed.

He is no worse than Warren Jeffs.

Yay! I'm being stalked!!

i bet the hospital caught on when the mysterious illness was diagnosed. and i bet the illness is a result of the narrow genepool.

if liz's mum's chromosomes are Xm Xm and her dad's are Xd Yd, then Liz's are Xd Xm.

her daughter's can only be Xd Xm and Xd Xd.

since most of her children are female, they would only be as diverse as Liz or inherit all of her father's genes.

if her father has any recessive genetic defects, they would show up when both X chromosome are his.

The laws of genetics are proven by this case as three of her living children are boys and three are girls.

The limited gene pool did not lead to favoring either gender like unrelated parents do.

The daughter was also greatly disturbed during interview with police, so the father must have been also physically and verbally abusing her as well or at least grooming her.

It wasn't until after she was convinced she'd never have to go back to her father that she confessed all.


Even so, I'd like to observe her children to see if they suffer behavior abnormalities.

There will probably be a lot of depression and anger for a long time. Tho, I think some reactive behavior will clear up when the father dies.

I like the bagels with raisins and cream cheese on them!

the poor children.

no comment

Fu ck i n g VILE and oh ya the mother was unaware all right. Hang the both of them quickly.

<h1 id="story_title"> Imam rapes his own children
</h1> HE HAS multiple wives who gave him scores of children, including five teenage girls whom he raped repeatedly over a period of 18 months before one of them blew the whistle on him.

The 45-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the children, had subverted parts of the Quran to justify incest.

While conducting a religious lesson, he convinced his wives that he had ownership over his children, which included having sex with them.

Several of his wives even helped him rape their daughters, the court was told on Thursday, in what is one of the most serious cases of sexual abuse in recent years.

There were 43 charges levelled against the man, who preyed on his daughters when they were between 12 and 15 years old, from December 2003 to June last year.

The litany of charges included rape, attempted rape, and aggravated rape, because some of the girls were below 14 and outrage of modesty.

The prosecution said there could be more than 43 instances of abuse. He was only charged over incidents that the girls - now in the care of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports - could recollect.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Eugene Lee told the court: “The incidents of abuse were so numerous that they were hard-pressed to keep count, much less remember the exact specifics of each incident.”

Likewise, the girls’ father too could not remember.

The court heard on Thursday that he would send one of his wives to tell a girl to go to his bedroom. He would have sex with them even though they cried out in pain.

Two later became pregnant and had to go for abortions.

Finally, on June 24 last year, the oldest of the abused daughters reported her father to the police. He was arrested the next day.

On Thursday, the stout, bespectacled man with greying hair pleaded guilty to nine of the charges against him. Justice Tay Yong Kwang will take the remaining charges into consideration when he delivers sentence on Tuesday.

The prosecution asked the judge to put the man away for a “substantial period.”

The penalty for rape is a maximum of 20 years in jail and caning. For aggravated rape, the penalty is at least eight years in jail and 12 strokes of the cane.

Said DPP Lee: “In cases involving young persons, particularly one’s own children, the courts have never shied away from imposing heavy sentences in order to send out a clear signal to all would-be offenders that there is zero tolerance for such heinous crimes.”

He noted that the man had planned his moves and had abused his daughters in the sanctity of their own home.

The man’s lawyer, Harold Seet, denied that his client had been motivated by lust.

He said the patriarch, who ran his own firm, was stressed out by having to provide for his large family.

To add to these worries, he learnt that the girls were behaving inappropriately with boys.

He concluded that having sex with his daughters to “satisfy” them, so they would be less likely to go with others, was the lesser of two evils, said the lawyer.

In response to The Straits Times’ queries, the prosecution declined to say whether charges would be brought against the wives who helped him. – The Straits Times / Asia News Network

there some thing fishy about this whole affair? how did this guy keep all this from his wife living up stairs and the next door neighbors, especially every couple years a new baby arrives at the door and only he gets to answer the door each time to receive a new child from the the long lost daughter? 7 friggin times?

this whole thing wreaks of something phony in the works

They showed in today's BBc about this. He has devised a underground building with secret doors and very narrow passages. with no windows, and all kichen bathroom all in tact inside. He is an engineer by profession.

I'm not questioning the living quarters i seen that its the 7 kids? how do you explain 7 kids running around specially to your wife

They had 7 kids but only 3 were left down in the cellar with her. Him and his wife raised 3 and
one died at birth.

sicko. blue eyed devil

This post has been edited by Morpheus: Apr 28 2008, 08:01 PM

This is the updated news from today

The Sun

what is more stupid is how when such things is going on in the world, what everyone tends to be talking about is the racy photos of Miley Cyrus!
Anyways this australian man is sick, how can you impregnate your DAUGHTER 7 times! The poor daughter had these children in the cellar with no medical attention or help. How can the man's wife not know what is going on for 24 years!! Hasn't she ever wondered what is in the basement? or bothered to go down there? Hasnt she ever wondered why her husband keeps on going down to the cellar with food and water?
And how does this monster decide which kids get to live upstairs and get to see daylight...and which kids have to be punished and live in the cellar and never see daylight.

I read a black man affiliated with MLK, whom is in prison now, did wrong to his daughter.

http://www.waaytv.com/Global/story.asp?s=8134236

and THIS being a supposed "upstanding" black man affiliated with iconic MLK, of all things.

What the hell is it with Austrians? First Natasha Kampusch, and then this weirdo and his daughter? They sure like to keep little girls locked up in basements.

what you need to understand is that EVIL is EVIL, and it effect the human race across the board, there is a basic knowledge that we all have and we know what is RIGHT or wrong....screwing a baby? Ignorance...nooooo...it's something that ANY human being knows is sick and perverted! Give them more credit than that. It's pure evil. And as far as selling your own blood to a life of misery??? Nooooo...that does NOT compute...by instinct I would just as soon die myself before making my baby suffer....

MLK affilitaion prevert...did you read it??? What is your excuse for that one?

Evil is evil, and the problem is a spiritual battle across the human family, not one race holds stake to it. If you are human, and if you are weak and unprotected...then you are target for the evil that infects mankind. AND YET, SOME PPL ARE JUST DAMNED AND WICKED AND WRONG.

The father sounds like he was a Nazi. He was old enough when they were around.He has an awful expression on his face. He looks evil. Probably the legacy of the Nazis. He must have learned them. But Hitler was an Austrian, so maybe it's natural.

The Sinister face of Evil:



Judge for yourself. Lucifer like eyebrows. Inhuman eyes. Twisted mouth.

it's called mental illness.