John
03-17-2009, 05:29 PM
Reporters have previously been excluded for harrowing video evidence from Elisabeth Fritzl, who spent 24 years underground.
Fritzl, 73, from Amstetten, Austria, could be jailed for life if convicted of a murder charge relating to a baby boy who died in the cellar.
An Austrian official, at a press conference, said measures had been put in place to ensure the retired electrical engineer does not commit suicide.
Fritzl has admitted incest, partially pleaded guilty to rape and confessed to deprivation of liberty.
But he denies murder and enslavement. Verdicts on both charges are expected by Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the public will be able to listen to evidence from psychological and technical experts.
Reporters were barred from the courtroom in Sankt Poelten, west of Vienna, while 11 hours of video interviews with Elisabeth, now 42, were shown to jurors.
Officials had made protecting the privacy of the daughter and her six surviving children - three of whom grew up without daylight in the confined bunker - a priority.
Elisabeth had been lured into the cellar by her father in her late teens and then forced to have sex with him, prosecutors have said.
The other three children lived in the house above after being 'found abandoned' and then adopted by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie.
Fritzl, 73, from Amstetten, Austria, could be jailed for life if convicted of a murder charge relating to a baby boy who died in the cellar.
An Austrian official, at a press conference, said measures had been put in place to ensure the retired electrical engineer does not commit suicide.
Fritzl has admitted incest, partially pleaded guilty to rape and confessed to deprivation of liberty.
But he denies murder and enslavement. Verdicts on both charges are expected by Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the public will be able to listen to evidence from psychological and technical experts.
Reporters were barred from the courtroom in Sankt Poelten, west of Vienna, while 11 hours of video interviews with Elisabeth, now 42, were shown to jurors.
Officials had made protecting the privacy of the daughter and her six surviving children - three of whom grew up without daylight in the confined bunker - a priority.
Elisabeth had been lured into the cellar by her father in her late teens and then forced to have sex with him, prosecutors have said.
The other three children lived in the house above after being 'found abandoned' and then adopted by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie.