Man says daughter asked him for a friend

ST. POELTEN, Austria, March 13 (UPI) -- The Austrian man accused of keeping his daughter as a sex slave for 24 years may claim she asked him to kidnap a friend for her, court papers say.

Joseph Fritzl, 73, is scheduled to go on trial Monday in St. Poelten. He faces a long list of charges that include murder, rape, incest and kidnapping.

Fritzl told a psychiatrist that his daughter wanted him to provide her with a companion, The Sun reported.

"She wanted me to kidnap another girl so she had someone to talk to," he said. "She was really lonely. But I had enough problems with one woman down there."

Elisabeth Fritzl, 43, and three of the seven children she delivered in the cellar were discovered in April. One child died, thus the murder charge, and the other three were brought up by Fritzl and his wife, who was told their daughter had left them on the doorstep.

The trial, one of the most highly publicized in Austrian history, is expected to take five days, The Telegraph reported. St. Poelten, 30 miles from Amstetten where the Fritzls lived, is to be a no-fly zone for the duration to prevent aerial attempts to kill or free Fritzl.