Adrian Michaels is Group Foreign Editor at the Telegraph Media Group. You can write to adrian.michaels@telegraph.co.uk and follow @adrianmichaels on Twitter.

Josef Fritzl doesn't mean the death penalty is a good idea

I am not in favour of the death penalty. It's a personal matter and I understand and defend the right of others to disagree. But I'll take a guess that even people who believe that state-sanctioned, judicial killing is wrong would not be too bothered if Josef Fritzl were to be put to death for his crimes.

My colleague George Pitcher writes that it is just as well that Austrian law does not allow for this, as Fritzl's continuing presence in our midst will be a warranted reminder of the depths to which humans can sink. All the same, and perhaps because of that, if the man was carted off to the chair tomorrow morning I wouldn't be moved to demonstrate. I can understand that committing murder, rape, incest, enslavement and imprisonment over decades could be seen to invalidate one's right to a place in society.

But Fritzl's admission of guilt and apology came on the same day as a distressing miscarriage of justice was revealed in Britain. Sean Hodgson has just spent 27 years in jail for a murder he did not commit. He was freed yesterday after DNA evidence proved he was not the killer of a barmaid in Southampton.

Hodgson at first confessed guilt, which was an odd thing to do since we know that it was a lie. Then he spent years saying he didn't do it. If Britain still had the death penalty, Hodgson would in all probability be dead.

Instead, at 57, he has the chance to live out the rest of his interrupted life with family and friends. Where is the line to be drawn in a society that has capital punishment? Both Fritzl and Hodgson admitted their guilt. Perhaps Fritzl too will change his statement at a later date.

There will always be a risk of mistaken death sentences no matter how advanced our science and methodology. That, rather than arguments about the barbarism of legal murder in itself, should be enough reason for Fritzl to be alive.