Kidnap victim refuses to see mother
By Sim Sim Wissgott in Vienna
August 26, 2006 10:16pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
THE Austrian girl who was held captive for eight years in a basement refuses to see her mother, as police worked today to give Natascha Kampusch, 18, time to adjust to the outside world.
"She wants to be shielded," the mother, Brigitta Sirny, told today's edition of Die Presse newspaper, adding that her daughter has not wanted to see her since they were first reunited.
"It is better for her ... we didn't really know what to do so we put her in professional hands," Ms Sirny said.
Ms Kampusch, who disappeared in 1998 when 10 years old, was found wandering in the town of Strasshof, 25km north-east of Vienna, on Wednesday after escaping from a cell bellow a suburban home belonging to telecommunications technician Wolfgang Priklopil.
Police, who say she is being kept in "a safe place," have refused to give Ms Kampusch dolls she had as a child and will not allow her new stepmother, the wife of her remarried father and whom she has never met, to visit, Kurier newspaper reported.
Yesterday, Interior Minister Liese Prokop said Ms Kampusch, who bears her mother's maiden name, would be given a break from interrogation "until at least Monday".
Die Presse cited police sources saying the young woman "is now clamming up. It is becoming hard to question her".
Apart from a few people close to the case, nobody, not even Ms Sirny, knows where Ms Kampusch is being kept. She is surrounded by psychologists and a specially trained police officer and all meetings with family and police are held at a police station.
"She is 18 years old and therefore has the right to decide whether and with whom she wants to talk about her experiences," Gerhard Lang of the Austrian criminal police told Die Presse.
"She explicitly asked us not under any circumstances to give specific information to third parties," he said, adding that Ms Kampusch was following how her case was being reported on television and in the papers.
"Natascha lived in her own world. (Now) she must learn to deal with our world, she must build new relationships, with her family too," juvenile attorney Monika Pinterits, who has spoken with Ms Kampusch, told Kurier.
The 160cm-tall teenager apparently weighs just over 40kg.
"She ate practically only cold things, like bread and sausage and hardly any fruit or vegetables," Ms Sirny said in a Kurier report.
The paper said Ms Kampusch seemed to like sweets and a large box of Jaffa Cake-like orange biscuits can be seen in photos of her tiny cell.
Also in the photos of the 6 sq m room in which Ms Kampusch spent over 100 months, is the blue-checkered dress she was wearing on the day of her kidnapping, hanging on a clothes hanger, according to her mother.
"She seems to have wanted to always have it before her, her only link to her former life," Ms Sirny said after viewing a video of the cell.
With clothes strewn over the bed, handbags lying around, books and magazines piled high on the desk and mementoes stuck to a pinboard on the wall, what was Ms Kampusch's prison for 3,079 days looks like a typical teenager's room, according to photos.
Priklopil, the man who allegedly held the young woman for over eight years, seems to have planned the kidnapping months in advance, furnishing the place and installing running water and a ventilation system behind the 150 kg vault door.
Electricity for the light, radio and TV were also controlled externally with a timer, according to Kurier.
The paper reported that Ms Kampusch cried a lot when she found out Priklopil had killed himself, which could indicate she is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, a condition in which captives develop a positive relationship with their captors over time.
Press reports said Ms Kampusch may have had sexual relations with Priklopil and that they were "voluntary", following similar claims by a policewoman who spoke to the young woman, but police investigators will not confirm it.
Ms Kampusch is also reported to have made diary entries during her time in captivity.
08-26-2006, 05:26 PM
