Austrian Man Accused of Unspeakable Crimes

I'm sure you're all aware of this disgusting story that emerged out of Austria last week. The man who locked his 12 year old daughter in a dungeon 24 years ago and repeatedly raped her fathering seven children with her

There's more here (and other places too I'm sure)

AP Interview: Austrian wife clueless of daughter's captivity - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_eu/austria_captive_daughter_68)

But perhaps the lawyers on this site can help me out with something here. This paragraph from the above link

"Fritzl has not been formally charged. He faces up to 15 years in prison if he is ultimately convicted on rape charges, the most grave of his alleged offenses, unless prosecutors can charge him with "murder through failure to act" in connection with the death of the infant. That is punishable by up to 20 years in prison."

That's it? For all that he's supposedly done, that's the worst punishment he faces? Is that justice?

My god, this is so horrible. He held her captive for 24 years and the maximum he faces is 20 years in prison? Justice must be on vacation in Austria. Where is Texas Justice when you need it?

Yeah that is just plain old fashioned messed up. And is that seriously the most he can get put in jail for? This has to be amongst the most sickening stories I've ever heard of. Anything less than 50 years is crap imo, and the only reason I say 50 years is because he's gotta be getting up there in years so 50 would pretty much assure he spends the rest of his life in prison. I'm a somewhat advocate of the death penalty and I'd have no qualms about giving it out in this case.

He just robbed his daughter of 24 years of her young life, not to mention all the trauma she probably has from having her father making her have 7 kids and everything else associated with what he's done. If they give him a 20 year sentence I would be pretty mad.

Apparently, the American and West European criminal penalty systems are very different.

Incest case revives prison term debate - Europe - MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24392007/page/2/)

Europeans, apparently, have a system that works to rehabilitation. I am fine with rehabbing people, but, first and foremost, if you do the crime, you do the time.

This is the reason why we (I realize this case is in Australia) should never abolish the death penalty.

This man clearly is unable to live among other people, even his own family. He is not fixable by jail time or rehabilitation. He needs removed from society to protect everyone else.

One rape is bad enough, but seven and to your OWN DAUGHTER? Disgusting is not a strong enough word.

Once someone crosses the moral line and kills or rapes, they can not go back to being a normal human being and it will be easy to repeat. Statistics back this repeat offending claim up too. This is why I feel they should all be removed from our population when they commit these violent, inhuman crimes.

Buster....put another shrimp on the barbie?

Austria ≠ Australia

However, I do agree with your post for the most part...

....put another shrimp on the barbie?


:eek:

I'd love to get SGG's and Lady Brave's take on all this

I'd love to get SGG's and Lady Brave's take on all this
I'm not sure what else I can add to the conversation really. Is a 15-20 year sentence in this type of case just? Not by a long shot. I think Fritzl will get the max and the only solice we can take from that is, because of his age, he'll most likely die in prison.

As far as rehabing sexual predators and pedophiles goes, I think there is only a very small percentage of them who can overcome their deviant behavior and it's usually only the ones who respond well to medication. As to the ones who don't, my personal opinion is that they should be castrated and never allowed to see the light of day again.

I dont understand why they keep mentioning 15 yrs for rape but Ive read nothing about jail time for holding someone captive for 24 yrs,what about that?