Prosecutors said the infant could have been saved should Josef Fritzl, 73, have applied for medical help in time. They said that "while knowing that the newborn's life was threatened," Fritzl "deliberately failed to ask third persons for help."
The prosecutor's office in St. Poelten, west of Vienna, said Fritzl has also been charged with rape, incest and deprivation of liberty.
Fritzl confessed soon after his arrest to having fathered seven children with his daughter Elizabeth, who was lured to the bunker back in 1984.
Elizabeth, now 42, finally agreed to speak to police about her ordeal when she learned that without her statement her father could avoid a prison term. Elizabeth has been described by witnesses as frail and prematurely aged after spending most of her life without sunlight or fresh air and in constant fear of her father.
To explain Elizabeth's absence, he told his wife and police that Elizabeth had run away from home to join a sect.
The case came to light when Fritzl took Kerstin, his eldest daughter with Elizabeth, to a hospital with multiple organ failure. The 19-year-old was born and raised in the cellar below Josef's garden along with two other children, Stephan and Felix. She was put into an artificial coma by doctors but is reported to be on the way to a full recovery.
Doctors found a note on Kerstin from her mother, sparking a search for Elizabeth. Fritzl then freed his captives from the cellar, telling his astonished wife that their daughter had decided to return.
The ensuing investigation revealed that Fritzl, who had a previous rape conviction, had been abusing his daughter since she was 11. He is expected to face trial in March next year.
Three children born of the incestuous relationship were brought up by Fritzl and his wife in their house. He told his wife that their daughter had left them on the doorstep.
Fritzl's 69 year-old wife Rosemarie insists she knew nothing about her husband's second family, and is receiving psychiatric care in the Amstetten hospital.
