An Austrian court sentenced Josef Fritzl to life on Thursday after finding him guilty of charges linked to 24 years of incest with his daughter, with his term to begin in a mental facility.

Fritzl twice told the court that he had accepted the verdict, meaning it would come into effect straight away.

Eight jurors reached a unanimous guilty verdict on the charge of murder.

He was also found guilty of the other charges of incest, rape, sequestration, coercion and enslavement for fathering seven children with his daughter Elisabeth during almost a quarter of a century of sexual abuse in a damp dungeon.

He was found guilty of murder by neglect for letting one of the babies die.

This carried the maximum sentence of life.

Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said that his client found the verdict "fair."

"After confessing to 3000 instances of rapes, 24 years of captivity in a cellar plus murder, it's obvious that such a sentence will be handed down," Mayer told journalists.

A 'fair' sentence

"Obviously, he thinks this sentence is fair."

Court spokesman Franz Cutka explained that Fritzl would first be transferred to a special facility for mentally abnormal offenders where he would undergo treatment.

There were three such facilities in Austria, in Graz, Garsten and Stein.

If after a number of years, doctors were in a position to say that he had been cured, then Fritzl he would be transferred to a normal prison where he would serve the remainder of his life sentence.

In Austria, prisoners jailed for life can be considered for conditional release after an absolute minimum of 15 years.

So in theory at least, it was "feasible" that Fritzl could at some point be released, Cutka said.

But the defendant's lawyer, Mayer, noted that given Fritzl's advanced age, it was practically impossible that he would ever be a free man again.

"One look at his age, and that's clear," Mayer told n-tv television in an interview.

In the immediate days, Fritzl would remain in Sankt Poelten, until the necessary papers had been signed for his transfer to a special coordination centre in Vienna-Mittersteig.

At that centre, experts would ascertain whether Fritzl was capable and motivated enough to undergo therapy, explained Erich Huber-Guensthofer, deputy director of Sankt Poelten prison.

Then they would establish which therapy was suitable and decide which facility to send him to, Huber-Guensthofer said.

AFP