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Austrian police have arrested a 73-year-old man accused of locking up his daughter in his cellar for 24 years, and fathering seven children with her.

Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, has accused her father, Josef, of 'massive crimes'. DNA tests are being conducted on Ms Fritzl and six surviving children.

Elisabeth Fritzl told investigators her father put her to sleep with an anaesthetic on 28 August 1984, handcuffing her in a locked basement.

Officially, she was declared a missing person, with Interpol opening an investigation. Local authorities concluded she had been seized by a religious cult.

Ms Fritzl told police that she spent years imprisoned in an underground chamber beneath the family home near the eastern town of Amstetten.

She said she was 'regularly abused' by her father and their incestuous relationship produced seven children.

All the children appear to have been born in the basement. Investigators said one child, a twin, died shortly after birth. Police said the body was subsequently burned.

Three boys and three girls, now aged between five and 20, survived. Josef Fritzl legally adopted two boys and one girl.

Mr Fritzl is said to have told his wife, Rosemarie, and local authorities that three babies had been left by Elisabeth on their doorstep, in different years.

Each delivery was accompanied by a letter purportedly signed by Elisabeth Fritzl, saying she could not support the child because she already had others to care for.

The three adopted children, living with the man who was both their father and their grandfather, went to school as normal, seemingly unaware that their mother and three other siblings (a girl of 19, and boys of 18 and five) were trapped underground.

Elisabeth Fritzl and five of her children are now in hospital. All are being treated by a team of psychologists. Reports said the mother was physically frail and badly disturbed by her ordeal.

Neither neighbours nor social services appear to have had the slightest inkling that the woman and three of her children were imprisoned in their family home.

Police said the case only came to light after one of the girls, 19-year-old Kerstin, was admitted to hospital in a critical condition in mid-April.

Doctors stepped up efforts to find the mother, looking for background medical information, and Josef Fritzl brought his secret offspring into the family home.

He is said to have told his wife they suddenly reappeared.

Elisabeth Fritzl told investigators her mother knew nothing about the sexual abuse she had endured since the age of 11, some seven years before she was locked away.

Authorities found Elisabeth Fritzl and the three underground children yesterday evening.

Mr Fritzl gave police the security access codes to the basement this evening.

Police found several rooms 170 centimetres high, equipped with water and a television.

Tural wrote:Kill him.

bibbit wrote:This is madness.

bibbit wrote:Kill him or lock him up til he rots. This is madness.

[cc]z@nd! wrote:this is some pretty *** up **** right here. death penalty, or solitary confinement, since someone so *** up obviously just can't function in society.

It wrote:The three adopted children, living with the man who was both their father and their grandfather, went to school as normal, seemingly unaware that their mother and three other siblings (a girl of 19, and boys of 18 and five) were trapped underground.

It also wrote:Mr Fritzl is said to have told his wife, Rosemarie, and local authorities that three babies had been left by Elisabeth on their doorstep, in different years.

metkillerjoe wrote: Don't kill him; he wouldn't learn his lesson.