Josef Fritzl reckons people will be ‘celebrating’ in the streets and queuing up to shake his hand if he is successful in his bid for freedom in the coming months.

Fritzl, who has since changed his name, kept his daughter Elisabeth captive for 24 years in a dungeon he built beneath his home, and fathered seven children with her. He has been held in an institution for mentally disturbed prisoners since 2009, after his conviction for rape, enslavement, incest and murder by neglect of his newborn son.

Josef Fritzl is now 89 years old, has progressive dementia and is extremely frail, and so his lawyer Astrid Wagner is optimistic he will be freed.

She told The Mirror: ‘He believes that when he is released, he will come out to a big celebration with people cheering and music and wanting to shake his hand.

‘This is obviously not the case. It is a fantasy. I don’t think he fully understands what the world really thinks.’

Ms Wagner says Fritzl wants to move back to where he previously lived but noted: ‘He would need a carer and none of his friends or family want to know.’

In January last year, an Austrian court ruled Fritzl no longer posed a threat to society and had him transferred from a high-security prison to a regular jail. It seems that his lawyer will now use this same argument to push for his release, though I seriously doubt this will happen given the public outcry it would create and the fact that there is no way Fritzl is safe on the outside world, name change or not. It would also mean he’d have done less ‘time’ than his daughter! That can’t be right, can it?

I guess this delusion he has that he’ll be freed and there’ll be people partying and congratulating him in the streets is probably a symptom of his dementia. Of course, the reality is that the whole world hates him, his friends and family want nothing to do with him, and he’s incapable of looking after himself, so what’s the point?

What’s really horrifying is the thought that there are other Josef Fritzl’s out there right now keeping victims locked up in basements or hidden rooms, and no one has a clue about it.

The only reason Fritzl himself was caught was because Elisabeth (above) managed to get a letter to the outside world via her daughter who was born in captivity and became seriously ill. When Fritzl agreed to send the girl for a check-up, Elisabeth gave her a letter to pass on to the doctor. The doctor passed the letter to police and the rest is history. Still, it took 24 years for her to get the chance!

Let him die in prison as was the original plan, IMO. Better yet, just lock him away forever in a dark hole. Literally no one will feel bad about it.

For the man who was missing for 27 years and was eventually discovered inside a hole being held captive by his next door neighbour, click HERE. Bone-chilling stuff.