Austrian incest suspect released after daughters change stories

Austrian incest suspect released after daughters change stories

2011-09-10 07:44:59 GMT+7 (ICT)

BRAUNAU (BNO NEWS) -- An 80-year-old man from northwestern Austria was released on Friday after his two adult daughters retracted previous statements in which they claimed their father had raped and imprisoned them for more than 40 years.

Police in the Braunau am Inn district of Upper Austria state arrested the elderly man last month after his two daughters claimed they had been sexually abused by their father since 1970, when they were both about 4 and 12 years old. They also accused their father of imprisoning them in a small room and preventing them from socializing.

"They were repeatedly threatened by the accused who threatened to kill them with weapons," police said in a statement released in late August. It said the wife of the man, who is also the mother of the two women, died in 2008 and alleged that she too was both physically and sexually abused.

But the women, who are now 53 and 45 years old and both have mental disabilities, suddenly changed their stories on Friday when they said it was not their father but a stranger who sexually assaulted them. However, a lawyer of the father was quoted as saying that the women regard being tied to a bed as rape.

After the women changed their stories and told investigators that their father did not rape them, the man was released without charges. Police are now investigating the new claims that a stranger assaulted the women.

It was not immediately clear whether the women will be prosecuted for making the false accusations.

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