Fritzl seeks credit for not killing child

VIENNA, May 7 (UPI) -- Josef Fritzl said he was "not a monster" because he kept his daughter imprisoned in the cellar of his Austrian house when he could have easily killed her.

"I am not a monster," Fritzl said in a statement released through his lawyer. "I could have killed all of them and no one would have known. No one would have ever found about it."

Fritzl, 73, remained jailed under high security Wednesday for allegedly keeping his adult daughter locked in a secret basement dungeon and sexually assaulting her for 24 years.

Britain's The Times of London said the statement, which was carried Wednesday by the German tabloid Bild, went on to decry what Fritzl said was one-sided coverage of the sensational story.

Frtizl's attorney said the Amsterdam resident was a "broken man" who belonged in a mental hospital rather than prison.

Reinhard Haller, a leading forensic psychiatrist in Austria, disagreed with claims that Fritzl was insane. He told The Telegraph: "His main motivation was the exercise of power. It is not a sign of mental illness but rather of an extreme personality disorder."