Viewpoint Special: The Austrian Incest Case

I know that a lot of you are coming here for more information on the case of the Austrian man, Josef Fritzl, who kidnapped his own daughter and fathered seven children with her.

EuroNews is reporting that Fritzl is alledged to have threatened to kill his incestuous family with poison gas if they tried to escape.

France 24 reports that prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Fritzl. Although incest and rape carries shorter sentences, they're trying to establish a manslaughter case against Fritzl for the death of the seventh child.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide is reporting that police are asking for information from Fritzl's neighbours in the town of Amstetten.

RTE News is reporting that police are looking into possible links between the incest case, and the case of a murdered teenager in 1986 that has remained unsolved.

SwissInfo is reporting that Firtzl pretended to be his own daughter, in a phone call to his own wife back in 1994.

CNN reports that a tenant in Josef Fritzl's house claims that Fritzl's son was often seen entering the secret basement, an area that Fritzl said was off-limits to his tenant and indeed to his own wife.

All in all, much more information is coming out and we'll try and keep track of it here, as it develops.

News Roundup: Tuesday 29th April 2008

BBC News: Austrian Police have revealed that DNA evidence has backed up the claims that an Autsrian man fathered 7 children with his own daughter.

Commentary: My viewpoint on this is already posted here, but I note the considerable international interest in this story. Most newspaper commentary on this has been predicatbly horrified, whether the paper is politically on the left or the right. The more horrifying thing to me, is not so much that it happened, more that it actually went undetected or untraced for so many years. I find it difficult to believe he handled this entirely on his own. I also find it difficult to believe that his wife knew nothing about it. I hate to say this, but I'm sure there is more to come in this story, and it will not make nice reading.

BBC News: New reseach suggests about half of all Polish and Eastern European migrants who have come to the UK since 2004 have returned home.

Commentary: In a related story, BBC News also reports that a farmer near Peterborough takes on lots of Eastern European migrants to pick fruit and veg at a wage of £7-an-hour. Locals didn't want the job with one person quoted as saying, "...I'd prefer to sign-on than do that." This is what gets me riled up. Some of these lazy people would rather do nothing for a week and earn just £60.50, rather than do 30 hours work, and earn over 3 times as much, before deductions. It's shameful that people are not willing to work for more money than most retail workers get.

MSNBC: US presidential candidate Barack Obama has denounced his former pastor over public comments Reverend Jeremiah Wright has made recently.

Commentary: As the race for the Democratic nomination stretches on towards the convention, you have to wonder if the current situation is hurting the Democrats or the Republicans more. Sure, John McCain may have the Republican nomination sewn up, but the Democratic candidates are dominating the headlines and as the old saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Austrian man kidnapped daughter then fathered her children.

BBC News is reporting the quite horrific story of an Austrian man, who is now 73 years old, who kidnapped his daughter some 24 years ago, and then fathered children with her.

Quite honestly, I think the whole story is shocking, and needs no hyping at all. Though I do imagine the tabloids will overhype it as they usually do.