AUSTRIA: Natascha Kampusch has challenged media reports of her kidnapping, writes Derek Scally in Berlin
The Austrian teenager imprisoned for eight years in an underground room said yesterday she is "mourning in my own way" for the man who kidnapped her on the way to school in March 1998 and kept her prisoner until last week.
In a letter read to journalists, Natascha Kampusch rejected the suggestion that she was "dominated" by telecoms engineer Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself hours after she escaped last Wednesday.
"He was not my 'master', although he wanted that. I was just as strong. Symbolically he held me in his hands yet walked all over me.
"But he picked the wrong person - something he and I knew," she wrote in a letter read out by her psychiatrist, Prof Max Friedrich. "In my eyes his death wouldn't have been necessary. He was a part of my life, and for that reason I am mourning him in my own way."
Psychiatrists treating the teenager say she has suffered "severe emotional trauma" and as a result is demonstrating a strong emotional attachment to her captor, a condition often referred to as Stockholm Syndrome.
Natascha has not been seen or heard in public since escaping from captivity last Wednesday. She has seen her divorced parents briefly, but they complained at the weekend about the lack of access to their daughter, who is in a secure location with a team of doctors and psychologists.
Austrian police replied that they have not banned contact between Natascha and her parents. The teenager had asked not to see her parents for the time being and had gone voluntarily to a "safe house" for treatment, said police investigator Gerhard Lang.
"Natascha is not under police guard. If she wants, she can go wherever she wants. She is a free person," said Mr Lang.
The teenager wrote a letter to her father, Ludwig Koch, according to an Austrian news agency, asking him to be patient with her. "We will have all the time in the world," she wrote, according to the report.
In her open letter, Natascha said she needed more time to come to terms with her ordeal and would not talk to any journalists until then, or perhaps never. "Give me time until I can tell my own story," she wrote.
Natascha said she had understanding for the huge interest and curiosity and the "shocking and frightening" thought that an experience like hers is possible. However, she warned that she would pursue with all legal means anyone who tried to "cross the privacy boundary".
"Everyone wants to ask increasingly intimate questions that have nothing to do with them. Perhaps one day I will tell a therapist or someone else when I feel the need, or perhaps never," she wrote. "I will decide for myself when I make contact with journalists."
She described her imprisonment in an emotionless way: "Breakfast together - mostly he didn't work - housework, reading, television, talking, cooking. That was it, for years on end. All combined with the fear of loneliness." She said she was aware she hadn't had a normal childhood in the years she spent in the windowless, soundproofed cell built by Priklopil under his garage. Yet she said she didn't have the feeling that she had missed out on a lot. "At least I didn't start smoking or make the wrong kind of friends," she joked.
Natascha's lawyer Monika Pinterits said the teenager was doing well, joking and laughing, and had enjoyed having time for herself in the last days. "She's hugely interested in following the media coverage. But it bothers her that she's mostly portrayed in one particular way. She's not the poor victim, she is a young, grown-up woman," she said.
Ms Pinterits said that police questioning was continuing and that the teenager would soon be moved to sheltered accommodation. She is expected to sue Priklopil's estate for damages on charges of illegal imprisonment. An Austrian court psychiatrist has suggested she could expect damages of over €600,000. If she proves incapable of working, she will be paid a state pension for life.
The teenager spent some time at the weekend with a group of former friends, including the young woman who told police in 1998 that two men were involved in the kidnap: one to drag Natascha into a van and another to drive.
According to Natascha, there was only one man involved, Wolfgang Priklopil, but police are unable to rule out an accomplice until his house and van have been fully examined.
Despite appeals to be left alone, the media circus surrounding Natascha continued in Vienna yesterday. Family members are being offered €3,000 for interviews. The going rate for the first interview with Natascha has exceeded €50,000. A publisher has offered a similar amount for the book rights to her story.