BEIJING, April 29 (Xinhuanet) -- A 73-year-old Austrian man arrested Sunday for imprisoning his daughter in a basement for 24 years confessed to abusing her and forcing her to give birth to seven children, according to local police Tuesday.

    Police said Josef Fritzl also admitted burning the body of a baby that died at the house in Amstetten.

An Austrian police handout picture released April 28, 2008 shows a man suspected of keeping his daughter prisoner and abusing her for 24 years in the basement of a house in the small Austrian village of Amstetten. An Austrian woman said she was kept prisoner and abused by her own father for 24 years in a basement dungeon in eastern Austria, where she bore him seven children, Austrian police said on April 27, 2008.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    Police said the surviving children are three boys and three girls, the youngest of whom is 5. The oldest child is 19. And three of them have been confined during their entire lives to the darkness of their cell by their father.

    Police released Fritzl's full name and photograph at a news conference Monday.

    Fritzl was born in 1935 and was a young child when the Nazis annexed Austria before World War II.

    His daughter, identified as 42-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl, was 18 when she was imprisoned in the cell constructed deep beneath the family's apartment in the building.

    Officially, she was declared a missing person, with Interpol opening an investigation.

    The case only came to light when the oldest child became seriously ill and was taken to hospital in Amstetten.

    Fritzl was now placed in pretrial detention and faces up to 15 years in prison if charged, tried and convicted on rape charges, the most grave of his alleged offenses under Austrian law.

    (Agencies)

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