Woman 'imprisoned, abused' for 24 years

A woman has told police that she was held prisoner in a cellar for almost 24 years by her father, who repeatedly raped her and fathered her seven children.

Lower Austria police said in a statement that the 42-year-old woman, identified as Elisabeth F., had been missing since Aug 29, 1984 and was found by police in the town of Amstetten on Saturday evening following a tip.

Franz Polzer, head of the Lower Austrian Bureau of Criminal Affairs, told reporters that the 73-year-old father, identified in a separate police statement as Josef F., had been taken into custody.

In a chronology of events outlined in a statement, police said Elisabeth F. had apparently sent a letter a month after her disappearance asking her parents not to search for her.

During police questioning, Elisabeth F. told police her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 and locked her in a room in the cellar on Aug 28, 1984.

During the 24 years that followed, she said she was continually abused by her father and gave birth to six children, the statement said. In 1996, she gave birth to twins but one died several days later because it was not appropriately cared for. Josef F. had then apparently removed the corpse from the cellar and burned it, the statement said.

Police said Elisabeth F. appeared "greatly disturbed" psychologically during questioning. She agreed to talk only after authorities assured her that she would no longer have to have contact with her father and that her children would be taken care of.

The case came to light when the oldest child named as Kerstin F. fell severely ill and had to be taken to Amstetten hospital.

"A 19-year-old girl was dropped off at the Amstetten hospital last weekend," a spokesman for police said.

"The girl is seriously ill and is fighting for her life. A search for the mother, who had disappeared, was launched to get more details about the girl."

APA cited police as saying Josef F. has been arrested but had not confessed.

APA quoted Gerhard Sedlacek, spokesman for the public prosecutor's office in St. Poelten, as saying that the surviving children - three boys and three girls - are aged between 5 and 20.

DNA tests are expected to determine whether Josef F. is the father of the children.

The case is reminiscent of that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch, who spent eight years locked up in a windowless cell before dashing to freedom in August 2006.

Agencies

(China Daily 04/28/2008 page6)