"George Orwell" <nobody@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
Fritzl 'was a regular at brothel and prostitutes feared him'
07 May 2008
By ALLAN HALL
IN BERLIN
A FORMER brothel barman has revealed how the father in the cellar
***** case, Josef Fritzl, was a regular customer who instilled fear
in his club's working girls because of his dominant and violent
tendencies.
Christoph Flugel worked for six years as a waiter and barman at the
bordello Villa Ostende in Linz, 40 miles from Amstetten where Fritzl,
73, built the underground lair in which he raped his daughter over 24
years.
"He was a regular," said Mr FluADVERTISEMENTgel. "On the first look,
there was nothing wrong with him. He was neatly dressed and courteous.
But as soon as one of the girls he wanted to go upstairs approached
him, his mood changed."
He said that in conversations at the bar, he was a man who was clearly
more into dominance than the pleasure of *** itself - and therefore
was feared when he did go to the first floor where the girls had their
room.
He went on: "Ninety-five per cent of customers are totally normal; 3
per cent are a bit weird. Fritzl belongs to the remaining 2 per cent
that are definitely mentally ill.
"None of the girls wanted to spend time in a room with him. Two of
them even strictly refused to and did without the earnings."
But Fritzl went there again and again as the brothel changed its
prostitutes every ten weeks.
Flugel went on: "I recognised Fritzl on the pictures in the papers and
on TV. I will never forget his tight-fistedness, too. When he had to
pay 97 once, he demanded I return the three euros in change from a 100
note. Working as a barman, you never forget such behaviour, especially
when working in a nightclub.
"And upstairs, in a room, he got completely out of the track." Asked
what he meant, Mr Flugel replied: "Perverse. I heard about that when
talking to the girls. Two of them said, 'Never again with that guy!'.
Such a thing is very rare in this business."
Earlier this week, it emerged that building records showed that
Fritzel planned his underground lair well before Elisabeth was
entombed in it.
Police chief Franz Polzer said: "He started, six years before
Elisabeth was incarcerated underground, with extending the cellar,
most of the details of which he kept secret from planning
authorities."
Fritzel expanded the 35sq m cellar into 55sq m, but the extra space
was sealed off.
On 28 August, 1984, Elisabeth's incarceration began behind a 500kg
concrete door, and after the birth of her daughter Monika, now 14, he
opened up the extra space.
Mr Polzer added: "Long before the act, he clearly was possessed with
the idea of locking his daughter away. All the cavities under the
house were already in place."
Altogether, the dungeon had eight doors to the outside with intricate
locks.
Meanwhile, the enormity of his crime is weighing heavily on Fritzl.
His lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said that, after he was first arrested,
Fritzl watched television and ate meals with other convicts at his
remand prison. Now he refuses to leave his cell for fear of being
attacked by fellow prisoners, who traditionally loathe child-***
criminals.
Mr Mayer said he was in a "very bad condition" - and constantly
fretting about how his children were doing.
QUESTIONING DUE TO START
PROSECUTORS in Austria will today interview Josef Fritzl for the first
time.
The meeting between Fritzl and prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser will
take place in the prison in the Lower Austrian city of St Poelten,
where the 73-year-old is being held, said prosecution spokesman
Gerhard Sedlacek.
Mr Sedlacek said it was unclear if Fritzl would agree to answer
questions. Authorities say he initially confessed to locking up and
raping his daughter but has since remained silent and may claim to be
insane.
Chief investigator Franz Polzer said experts were continuing to sift
through Fritzl's property for evidence, adding there may be more
"hollow spaces" that need to be examined. It was unlikely
investigators would find anything "dramatic" , he said.
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