VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and fathered her seven children, said he was no “monster” and he could have killed her and her children had he wanted to, according to his lawyer.

“I am not a monster,” Austrian daily Oesterreich quoted Fritzl as saying in comments relayed by his lawyer Rudolf Mayer. Fritzl also criticised media coverage of his case as “totally one-sided”.

In 1984, the now 73-year-old lured daughter Elisabeth into a basement in his home in the eastern Austrian town of Amstetten, drugged her and locked her up. He claimed she had disappeared to join a sect.

Three of Elisabeth’s children were raised by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie after he pretended his daughter had left them on his doorstep with a letter saying she could not care for them.

The other three children remained locked up in the windowless basement with their mother. A seventh child died shortly after birth.

The pretence unravelled when the eldest child of the incestuous relationship, a 19-year-old daughter, became seriously ill and was taken to hospital more than two weeks ago.

The young woman remains in an artificial coma and needs artificial respiration, according to her doctor.

“Without me (she) would not be alive anymore…I was the one who made sure that she was taken to a hospital,” said Fritzl, who also has seven children with his wife Rosemarie.

“I could have killed all of them — then nothing would have happened. No one would have ever known about it.”

Fritzl is remanded in custody in the city of St Poelten.

(Reporting by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Robert Woodward)