Josef Fritzl

Josef Fritzl goes on trial this week, the question is what justice might mean in the case of the 73-year-old Austrian who has confessed to imprisoning and repeatedly raping his daughter Elisabeth for 24 years, fathering seven children with her in a windowless dungeon beneath the family's home. "Whatever happens, happens," was Mr. Fritzl's response as the newborn grew sicker, the indictment alleges. Prosecutors said they based the murder charge largely on that statement.

Prosecutors said they based the murder charge on testimony from Mr. Fritzl's daughter, videos of which will be shown in court behind closed doors to an eight-member jury. They said Mr. Fritzl refused to take action "despite the baby's life-threatening situation" after the boy developed severe breathing problems and turned blue. "I consider a murder conviction rather unlikely," said Klaus Schwaighofer, who heads the University of Innsbruck's criminal law institute.

Mr. Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said his client would plead guilty to most of the charges but dispute the murder and enslavement counts when the trial opens Monday in St. Pölten, west of Vienna. He also described the slavery accusation as "questionable." Some legal experts argue the prosecution's efforts to make a concrete case for murder will be complicated by the passage of time and the absence of forensic evidence. The police say Mr. Fritzl told them he burned the infant's body in a furnace after the baby died.