The notorious Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years, could soon be allowed to enjoy a coffee in a Vienna cafe under a controversial new legal request.
Fritzl's lawyer Astrid Wagner has confirmed she has lodged a petition for the pensioner to be granted day visits outside prison for so-called 'social training' - a scheme designed to help long-term inmates re-learn everyday skills.
If approved, Fritzl, 90, also known as the Cellar Monster, could be seen in public for the first time in over a decade, despite serving a life sentence for a catalogue of crimes so depraved they stunned the world.
Fritzl's name became synonymous with unimaginable cruelty in 2008, when it emerged he had locked his daughter Elisabeth in a hidden dungeon beneath his home in Amstetten, Lower Austria, from the age of 18.
Over nearly a quarter of a century, he repeatedly raped her, fathering seven children -one of whom died in infancy, with prosecutors arguing he was partly responsible for the death through neglect.
