Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man accused of kidnapping and imprisoning three women for about a decade in his house in Ohio will plead not guilty to all charges, his lawyers said on Wednesday, according to AFP. The women were abducted at different times and held in his Cleveland house.
One of his abductees Amanda Berry escaped earlier ths month, raising the alarm.
"He's not a monster and he shouldn't be demonised," his attorney Jaye Schlachet said.
Another defense lawyer Craig Weintraub said that Castro "loves dearly" the child he fathered with Berry, one of his three kidnap victims.
Prosecutors in Ohio, meanwhile, said they also plan to seek aggravated murder charges that could carry the death penalty. (The charges relate to alleged forced miscarriages suffered by one victim).
At the hearing last week, prosecutor Brian Murphy said that "the charges against Mr. Castro are based on premediated, deliberate, depraved decisions to snatch three young ladies from Cleveland West Side strees to be used in whatever self-gratifying, self-serving way he saw fit."
Castro is charged with four counts of kidnapping, covering the three initial abduction victims and Jocelyn, Berry's six-year-old daughter who was apparently conceived and born in captivity, news reports said.
Berry escaped from Castro's house by kicking the door and screaming for help, while Castro was out.
The two other abductees, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, were freed soon after. All three had been abducted after accepting from Castro.
