Kidnapped Austrian girl mourns captor's suicide

VIENNA - An Austrian girl traumatised by an eight-year kidnap ordeal said in her first public statement that she had refused her captor's demand to call him "master", yet mourned his suicide after her escape.

Natascha Kampusch, now aged 18, made no mention of the "sexual contact" with her kidnapper which police reported her as describing when she dashed to freedom last week. A police spokesman said earlier it was unclear whether this contact had been consensual or forced.

"We were equally strong - he was not my master," she said in the statement read out by her psychiatrist Max Friedrich at a news conference in Vienna, describing the circumstances of a crime that has shocked Austrians.

Kampusch said her captor, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, told her to address him as "master" but that she refused. She also described how she furnished her six-square-metre cell together with her captor, had breakfast with him, helped him cook and had chats with him.

"To give you a metaphor - he carried me in his arms but also trampled me underfoot," she said in the statement.

In 1998, Priklopil abducted the then 10-year-old on her way to school and locked her up in a windowless cell hidden beneath his garage in a village outside Vienna.

Following Kampusch's escape while she was vacuuming his car last week, he threw himself under a train in Vienna. For his captive, his death had been in vain.

"In my view his death was unnecessary. He was a part of my life and this is why I am, in a way, mourning him," Kampusch's statement said. "I feel sympathy for his mother."

Contrary to news reports, she had not cried when she heard of his death, she added.

Deep scars

Experts have said Kampusch is suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome" - a psychological condition in which long-held prisoners begin to identify with their captors.

Her psychiatrist said that the ordeal had left Kampusch with deep psychological scars, but that she was also a mature woman.

"Natascha is very, very traumatised," said Friedrich. "She became the victim of a very grave crime."

Kampusch said she realised that her teenage years had been different to those of her peers.

"My youth was different," she said. "But I was also spared a lot of things - I did not start smoking or drinking and I did not hang out in bad company."

Kampusch, living in a secret location and being cared for by a psychiatrist and police workers, said she was in touch with her parents by phone but asked to be left alone by the media.

"I am very aware of what an impact the last days must have made on you," Kampusch said, addressing journalists.

"The thought that something like this could happen is shocking and frightening, but I'm not going to answer any more questions about personal and intimate details."

"Give me some time until I can tell the story myself," she added.

- REUTERS