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 newspaper
Oesterreichquoted Fritzl as saying in comments relayed by his lawyer Rudolf Mayer. Fritzl (73) also criticized media coverage of his case as "totally one-sided".
In 1984, he lured his then 18-year-old 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.
Photograph of Josef Fritzl released by Austrian police
In a separate interview, Fritzl said he became addicted to incest with his daughter, who bore him seven children, and had imprisoned her in a cellar to save her from the outside world. He started raping her a year later.
"My drive to have sex with Elisabeth grew stronger and stronger," Fritzl was quoted as saying. "I knew Elisabeth didn't want me to do what I did to her. I knew that I was hurting her. ... It was like an addiction ... In reality, I wanted children with her."
Elisabeth (42), spent nearly a quarter of a century in a windowless cell in the basement of Fritzl's house, giving birth to seven of his children, now aged between 19 and five.
The daughter and three of the children lived in the 60 square metre cellar in Fritzl's nondescript two-storey home that officials said was no more than 1.7 metres high and contained a padded cell.
The pretence unraveled 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.
Elisabeth has told police that Josef started sexually abusing her when she was 11.
Fritzl, who also has seven other children with his wife Rosemarie, said he had locked up Elisabeth after she started to "break all the rules" following the onset of puberty. She went to bars, drank alcohol and smoked, and ran away a couple of times, he said.
"I tried to get her out of that swamp, organised her an apprenticeship to become a waitress," he said. "I needed to take precautions, I needed to create a place in which I could at some point keep her away from the outside world, by force if necessary."
Fritzl said he found himself trapped in a inescapable cycle once he had locked up Elisabeth. He told his wife their daughter had joined a sect.
"I knew all the time, during the whole 24 years, that what I did was not right, that I must be crazy to do something like that," he said, referring to Elisabeth's underground world as his 'empire'. "But nonetheless, it became a matter of course for me to lead a second life in the basement of my house."
Mr Mayer, confirmed the reported comments were authentic. He has said his client should have psychiatric tests to evaluate whether he is fit to stand trial. Mr Mayer said he might ask for a second assessment should the official court opinion not reflect his client's personality.
Fritzl described himself as a man who valued decency and good manners, and said the emphasis on discipline in Nazi times, when he grew up, might have influenced him.
"Nonetheless, I am not the beast the media depicts me as. When I went into the bunker, I brought flowers for my daughter, and books and toys for the children, and I watched adventure videos with them while Elisabeth was cooking our favourite dish," he said. "And then we all sat around the table and ate together."
Fritzl has been remanded in custody in the city of St Poelten.