Austrian Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and fathered her seven children, said he was no "monster" and he could have killed her and her children had he wanted to, according to his lawyer.
"I am not a monster," Austrian daily Oesterreich quoted Fritzl as saying in comments relayed by his lawyer Rudolf Mayer. Fritzl also criticized media coverage of his case as "totally one-sided."
In 1984, the now 73-year-old lured daughter Elisabeth into a basement in his home in the eastern Austrian town of Amstetten, drugged her and locked her up. He claimed she had disappeared to join a cult.
Three of Elisabeth's children were raised by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie after he pretended his daughter had left them on his doorstep with a letter saying she could not care for them.
The other three children remained locked up in the windowless basement with their mother. Fritzl burned the remains of a seventh child in a furnace when it died shortly after birth.
Horrors revealed
The horrors inside the Fritzl cellar unraveled when the eldest child of the incestuous relationship, a 19-year-old daughter, became seriously ill and was taken to hospital more than two weeks ago.
Doctors, unable to find medical records for the girl, appealed on television for her mother to come forward. Fritzl then accompanied Elisabeth to the hospital on April 26 and opened up to police.
The 19-year-old woman remained in medically-induced coma, according to her doctor.
"Without me (she) would not be alive anymore... I was the one who made sure that she was taken to a hospital," said Fritzl, who also has seven children with his wife Rosemarie.
"I could have killed all of them — then nothing would have happened. No one would have ever known about it."
Fritzl remanded in custody in St. Poelten.
Gullible officials blamed in case
On Wednesday, Austria's justice minister accused local authorities in failing to prevent the cellar incest case, saying they were gullible in their dealings with Fritzl.
The comments from Justice Minister Maria Berger were the first time the government has acknowledged official shortcomings in the handling of the case.
"Looking at everything that we know up to now, I can see a certain gullibility — especially when it comes to that tale that she had joined a sect, with which the suspect explained the disappearance of his daughter," Berger told Austrian daily Der Standard on Wednesday.
Fritzl adopted one and was allowed to foster the other two. Berger said that adoptions in Austria by family members, which until now have been less closely scrutinized than those by non-relatives, would be vetted more carefully.
"In general, adoptive parents are checked up thoroughly. One way to do so is to check the criminal record," Berger was quoted as saying in Standard. "Now we also want to make this compulsory when it comes to privileged adoptions by family members."
Rape conviction
Media and charities have questioned the decision to let Fritzl look after the children, especially as he had been convicted for rape in the 1960s.
The judge who ruled on the adoption said he had not asked for Fritzl's police record as he had no reason to do so. The conviction would have been wiped from the records by the time of the decision.
The Fritzl case has shocked Austria less than two years after Natascha Kampusch dashed to freedom after being held for eight years in a basement.
