A 73-year-old Austrian who confessed to locking his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years appeared before a judge yesterday in St Poelten, the provincial capital of Lower Austria. The judge has ordered that police could detain him while inquiries continue. DNA tests have shown that Josef Fritzl is the father of his daughter?s six surviving children. ?The result... shows that the six children, which the unfortunate Elisabeth Fritzl gave birth to in the basement, have all been undoubtedly fathered by her own father, the now 73-year-old Joseph Fritzl,? Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigation unit, told a news conference.

Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, says her father lured her into the cellar of their home in 1984 and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her. Three of her children, aged 19, 18 and 5, had been locked in the cellar with her since birth and had never seen sunlight. The younger two were boys, the eldest a girl. Three other children -- two girls and one boy -- were adopted and brought up by Fritzl and his wife Rosemarie. Police said Fritzl had admitted to burning the body of a seventh child when the baby died soon after birth.

The case unfolded when the 19-year-old daughter became ill and was taken to hospital. Doctors appealed for her mother to come forward to give details of her medical history. The doctor treating the young woman said her condition was critical. ?Our patient is in a severely life-threatening condition, which resulted from a lack of oxygen caused some time between Wednesday and Friday when she was admitted. In addition to 20 years underground, with no sunlight, 20 years of psychological stress, come other factors like infection.?

Fritzl brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the cellar after the young woman was hospitalised, telling his wife their ?missing? daughter had chosen to return home. Fritzl kept his daughter and three of the children in a complex less than 1m70 high and with a padded cell. Photographs of the cellar show a narrow passage leading to rooms that included a cooking area, with children's drawings on the walls, a sleeping area and a small bathroom with a shower. Fritzl had hidden the entrance to the cell behind shelves and only he knew the code for the concrete door.

Authorities have been asking how events in the house, situated in a busy street with shops in the small industrial town of Amstetten, 130 km west of Vienna, passed unnoticed for so long. Commentator Petra Stuiber wrote in Austrian daily Der Standard that what she termed a rich, self-satisfied society needed to examine why it was allowed to occur. ?How is it possible that nobody heard or saw anything? How can it be that nobody asked questions?? The local children's welfare office has come under scrutiny. A local official told daily Oesterreich that while juvenile welfare officials had been in touch with the children, Fritzl and his wife were never checked.

The case has shocked Austria, less than two years after teenager, Natascha Kampusch, escaped after being locked up for eight years. Elisabeth agreed to make a statement to the police after receiving assurances she would have no further contact with her father, who she said abused her from the age of 11. Police believe Josef's wife did not know what happened to her daughter when she disappeared in 1984. Fritzl had said Elisabeth had joined a sect and that she had left three of the children on the doorstep. He forced Elisabeth to write letters by hand to prove his claims, said the police.

<B>Sylvia WESTALL</B>