Josef F., who was sentenced to life imprisonment by Amstetten in the incest case and committed to an institution for mentally abnormal lawbreakers, is conditionally released from the measures to the so-called normal prison regime following a decision by the Krems Regional Court. The decision is not final, as spokesman Ferdinand Schuster announced to APA on Wednesday. The public prosecutor’s office lodged a complaint and the file was submitted to the Higher Regional Court (OLG) in Vienna for a decision.
The conditional release from the execution of measures was pronounced by a three-judge senate for a probationary period of ten years. The decision was linked to instructions, and court spokesman Schuster mentioned “psychiatric controls” in this context. According to Schuster, the decision was based on a supplementary psychiatric report that the court received at the end of March.
Opinion: There is no longer any danger
Josef F. is currently still in the execution of measures. Since the appeal has a suspensive effect, this will remain so until the decision becomes final, emphasized Schuster.
Josef F. – he has since changed his name – was sentenced to life imprisonment in March 2009 and also sent to an institution for mentally abnormal offenders. Since then he has been housed in the Krems-Stein prison. The prison court – in this case the Krems Regional Court – regularly checks whether the conditions for placement in prison are still met. This control is required by law.
At the end of September 2021, a decision was made in Krems to release Josef F. from the measure and transfer him to the “normal prison”, where he should continue to serve his life sentence. The decision at that time was based on the assessment of a psychiatric report, according to which the now 87-year-old no longer posed any danger.
Ministry of Justice: F. remains in custody
The public prosecutor’s office in Krems also lodged an appeal at the time, and the case went to the OLG. The decision of the regional court was overturned there, and the files were returned to Krems in November 2021. The Higher Regional Court found the reasoning “too little extensive” and ordered that the original criminal file should be procured again so that a “broader discussion” of the development of Josef F. could be undertaken, a spokesman for the Higher Regional Court said at the time to the APA. The aforementioned supplementary report was then commissioned by the Regional Court of Krems.
The Ministry of Justice had already stated in the previous year that the person concerned would remain in custody even if the decision were to become final. “Only the design of the prison would change,” emphasized a spokeswoman.
People sentenced to life imprisonment in the so-called normal prison system can only apply for their conditional release after they have served 15 years at the earliest. In the case of Josef F., that would be the case in 2023.
One of the most spectacular cases in criminal history
On April 19, 2008, the tormentor’s sick daughter was found in front of the hospital in Amstetten. A review:
April 19, 2008: A young woman is admitted to the state hospital in Amstetten. The then 19-year-old was seriously ill and found a letter in which the mother asked for help for her child. What nobody could even begin to guess at that time: with the “laying away” the terrible crimes of Josef F. came to light a little later.
The years of martyrdom: On April 26, a week later, F., his 42-year-old daughter and two children were intercepted by the police on the basis of a tip after a hospital visit to the 19-year-old (her exact date of birth is not known). The man was arrested. The sick woman may have seen “her window to freedom” with the officials, as Colonel Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austria State Criminal Police Office, announced two days later. The first details of the diabolical plan soon became known: for 24 years, F. had kept his daughter captive in a basement dungeon, sexually abused her and fathered seven children with her. Three of them, including the sick 19-year-old, had to live with Josef F’s daughter in the cellar rooms, some of which were only 1.70 meters high, without sunlight in his house in Amstetten. Three children were “adopted” by the perpetrator as foster children, they were allowed to live in the house. F. had staged an alleged leaving of the babies by his missing daughter. One child died shortly after birth.
Source: Nachrichten
