Natascha to speak in TV interview

Natascha Kampusch

The Austrian teenager imprisoned for more than eight years in an underground cell will tell her extraordinary story in public for the first time this week.

In an exclusive 20-minute interview with the state-owned ORF TV channel, Natascha Kampusch is expected to reveal further details of the ordeal at the hands of the obsessive loner who made her his slave - and to address some of the details of her story which, 12 days after her escape, remains vague and contradictory.

Disturbing questions are being raised about her family life before the abduction, about the ordeal itself - and about the degree of control exerted over her by the team of social workers, psychiatrists and government officials now treating the teenager.

Natascha, since her escape, has had just one brief meeting with her parents, Ludwig Koch and Brigitta Sirny, but reports suggest it was not the joyous reunion that might have been expected and a second meeting was cancelled at the last moment.

One possible explanation may lie in Natascha's unhappy family life before the kidnapping, said Walter Poechhacker, a private detective who wrote a book about the case.

"Something must have happened in that family. Something that had to be hidden," he said. "When the child begins to speak there will be surprises."

Over the past week, a picture has started to form of Natascha's deeply unhappy childhood at the time of the abduction. Both parents attest to an unfaltering devotion to their daughter, although her father is charging reporters €1500 ($3000) an interview.

It has also emerged that after her disappearance in 1988, investigators briefly looked at allegations she may have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her family.

There is no suggestion the rumours were true, but the revelation has fuelled speculation surrounding her apparent reluctance to be reconciled with her family.

Before her disappearance, Natascha's last conversation with her mother ended in a row and a stinging slap across the face.

At the time, Natascha was a chubby 10-year-old who was bullied at school for being overweight. After her parents' acrimonious separation, she had gained about 9.5kg in just over a year.

After the separation, Natascha lived with her mother on a grimy housing estate 20 minutes and a world away from the elegance of Vienna's city centre. There she caught the attention of the 36-year-old handyman Wolfgang Priklopil.

Last week, neighbours described him as a fastidiously dressed loner whose closest relationship was with his domineering mother, Waltraud.

On the morning of March 2, 1988, Priklopil intercepted Natascha as she walked to school, bundled her into a Mercedes van and drove her to his house in Strasshof, north of Vienna - and the underground cell that was to become her home for eight years.

From the moment of the abduction, Priklopil used lies and threats to manipulate his young captive, telling her that her parents had refused to pay a ransom and that the house was booby-trapped with bombs to prevent any escape attempts.

Psychologists have drawn a profile of Priklopil as a man obsessed with control, who used a system of rewards and punishments to dominate Natascha. But the true nature of their relationship may have been more complicated than a simple scenario of master and slave.

Natascha has refused to answer "intimate questions" about her relationship with the man she called "Wolfi". Forensic tests have confirmed that she did enter Priklopil's bed, but investigators have not yet found any conclusive evidence that their relationship was sexual.

Uncanny parallels have emerged between the case and the plot of a novel by the British author John Fowles. The Collector tells the story of an impotent butterfly collector who builds a cell in his basement, kidnaps an unhappy girl, and attempts to make her love him.

Incarcerated in the cramped 1.8m by 3m cell and uncertain that she would ever be free, Natascha spent eight years of emotional "torture", say the psychiatrists who are treating her.

Reports in the Austrian press say her worst moments came when Priklopil left the house, because she was never sure if or when he would return.

Later on in the captivity, Priklopil gave Natascha a degree of freedom, allowing her upstairs to watch Mr Bean videos with him, and even letting her out of the house to shop alone for groceries.

Natascha's father has filed a claim for a share of Priklopil's estate as compensation for her suffering.


At the weekend Natascha was to meet a carefully selected group of Viennese teenagers in her first contact with people of her own age for eight years.

- INDEPENDENT