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VIENNA - Austrian former kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch helped promote a telethon for handicapped children today and said she would be spending her first Christmas with her family in nine years.
Kampusch, 18, was forced to live in a cell beneath a house garage from 1998 until her dramatic escape last August, which turned her into an international media sensation. Her captor, a 44-year-old man, committed suicide hours after she slipped away.
In only her second public appearance since she regained freedom, Kampusch visited a Vienna centre for handicapped children as part of a telethon on Austria's ORF television.
Kampusch told an interviewer she wanted to make a contribution to the fundraising event "because I know personally what it is like when no one notices you, when no one knows how bad things are for you.
"I know what it's like to feel cut off from society. And handicapped kids often have a hard time finding themselves (in regular society)," Kampusch said.
"I have a certain responsibility. I love children, They are more honest, spontaneous, sweet," she added.
Kampusch, looking well and rested in contrast with her first appearance, frail and pallid, for a television interview days after her escape, said she expected to spend the holiday season with her parents and grandmother.
Kampusch is living on her own in a small rented apartment with access to psychological counselling to further her recovery from eight years of captivity, local media say.
Police have closed their investigation into her ordeal after determining that her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, had no accomplices.
- REUTERS
