(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-08 07:40

AMSTETTEN, Austria - An Austrian accused of keeping his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years insisted Wednesday he was "no monster", as over 500 residents of his town staged a rally in support of the victims.

The rally, in Amstetten's town square, aimed to show solidarity with Elisabeth Fritzl and the children she bore with her father during her captivity, but also to remind residents that they "as a community, did not fail", said spokesman Hermann Gruber.

Josef Fritzl -- the Austrian accused of keeping his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years -- insisted Wednesday he is "no monster", as residents of his town staged a rally in support of the victims. [Agencies]

"This was one man," Margarete Reisinger, 68, told AFP. "I'm proud to be from Amstetten."

Schoolchildren unrolled a dozen banners with messages of solidarity for the victims but also of criticism to the media for its vilification of the small town.

"We in Amstetten can't help that we had such a person among us, but the whole world is watching us," said Robert Schiller, 68.

"This Amstetten we see today, that's the real Amstetten," Gruber told the crowd calling for "a return to normality in our town and in our province."

Meanwhile, while the government in Vienna agreed to take a tougher line on sex crimes, Josef Fritzl, in comments passed by his lawyer to the tabloid newspaper Oesterreich, insisted he was "no monster."

Fritzl, 73, claimed credit for having saved the life of his daughter and added: "I could have killed them all. Then there would have been no trace. No-one would have found me out."

The prosecution, which interviewed the suspect Wednesday for the first time since his arrest at the beginning of last week, said it found Fritzl to be "cooperative" and "ready to talk".

Spokesman Gerhard Sedlacek said the interview with investigating prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser in St. Poelten prison where Fritzl is being held, lasted "about one and a half hours" although Fritzl was not yet questioned directly about the accusations.

Residents from Amstetten hold rolls of paper with their comments and thoughts on it in support of a family who became victims of a crime of incest and abuse in the main square in Amstetten, Lower Austria, Wednesday May 7, 2008. [Agencies]

"The interview focussed on his personal history, his professional career, et cetera," the spokesman said.

In the comments published by Oesterreich, Fritzl claimed he had saved the life of the eldest of the six surviving children born from the sexual abuse.

Nineteen-year-old Kerstin, who was born in the cramped dungeon where Fritzl held his daughter prisoner and was never allowed out, was rushed to hospital on April 19 with multiple organ failure, which doctors suggest could be a result of her incarceration.

She has since been in an artificially-induced coma and put on a life-support machine.

It was Kerstin's hospitalisation that triggered the events which led to the discovery of the shocking abuse case. But Fritzl said: "If it weren't for me, Kerstin wouldn't be alive today."

He added: "It was me who made sure she was taken to hospital."

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