by HMKGrey » Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:03 am
Austria, Belgium... s'all the same. <br><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>VIENNA, Austria (AP)</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> -- The young woman who resurfaced last week after being held captive in a dingy, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>windowless cell for more than eight years has the right to privacy, authorities said Sunday, adding that she is not under police supervision.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The decision to seclude herself -- and to avoid seeing people, including her parents -- was hers alone, police s</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>"If Natascha decides to go into ... Vienna's inner city and get a coffee, then she can do that," Police Maj. Gen. Gerhard Lang of the Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau told the Austria Press Agency.<br><br>"If she wants, she can go everywhere," Lang said.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Natascha Kampusch resurfaced last week -- more than eight years after being abducted while on her way to school when she was 10 and escaping her captor Wednesday while he was busy with a phone call.<br><br>Her captor, 44-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil, committed suicide hours after she fled by throwing himself in front of a commuter train in Vienna.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Her parents, though overjoyed to learn Natascha is still alive, have expressed frustration that they have not been able to spend more time with their long-lost daughter.<br><br>In an interview in the Sunday edition of the newspaper Kurier, Kampusch's mother said she had seen her daughter only once since her escape.[/b]<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"Natascha is now locked away again. </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->That's terrible for me," the newspaper quoted Brigitta Sirny as saying. The mother added that she did not think it was what the 18-year-old wanted.<br><br>"I really couldn't imagine that. I think the mother should be close," she told the newspaper.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"Psychologists and doctors are all well and good, but a daughter also needs her mother. Why can't I see my daughter?"<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>Sirny told the newspaper that a fortune teller told her that Natascha was alive in a cellar to the north and that she prayed every day that her daughter would make it through her ordeal.<br><br>"Every day I prayed: Please Natascha, hang in there," Sirny said.<br><br>"I celebrated her birthdays, baked cakes that I threw away afterwards," she said.<br><br>She said her "biggest wish" would be that Kampusch would now come to live with her.<br><br>The teen, who is in a <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>secure and undisclosed location</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->, was "in a good mood" and met with young people her age, according to Monika Pinterits, an attorney who said she spent several hours with Kampusch on Saturday and met with her again Sunday afternoon.<br><br>Kampusch had engaged in excited conversation with the other young people, and enjoyed their company, Pinterits said, according to APA.<br><br>Kampusch had one brief, emotional reunion with her parents after her escape, but has not asked for them since, police said.<br>story.priklopil.ap.jpg<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Kampusch's father, Ludwig Koch, begged police to be allowed to have a cup of coffee with her and snap a few photographs to share with the extended family, APA reported Saturday, citing a senior investigator.<br><br>Police declined, fearing the photos would end up in newspapers and on television because of intense interest in the case, long one of Austria's greatest unsolved mysteries.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>But Koch later told reporters his daughter, who has her mother's maiden name, sent him a letter that read, in part: "We'll have all the time in the world." <br><br>Kampusch will spend Sunday night at the same location she has been since Friday evening, but what happens next is "her decision," Lang said. A medical exam showed she was capable of making her own decisions, Lang said, as quoted by APA.<br><br>Investigators will decide Monday or Tuesday -- with Kampusch -- if and when she would be ready to continue to speak to them about her experience, Lang said Sunday on Austrian radio.<br><br>Reinhard Haller, a well-known Austrian psychiatrist and professor, said in an interview on Austrian radio Oe3 that Kampusch must now learn to trust her loved ones and get to know the feeling of security.<br><br>It sometimes can take kidnapping victims a long time to "rebuild a bridge" to those they love most, and sometimes they initially might show feelings of rejection, Haller said.<br><br>"The affected people shouldn't take this personally because it is part of the entirely normal integration mechanism," Haller said.<br><br>Taking shifts, investigators continued Sunday to search for clues in the house in the semi-rural community of Strasshof, north of Vienna, where Kampusch was kept, for the most part, in a dungeon.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>"A lot of what Priklopil told Natascha was wrong," he said. "He manipulated his victim."<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>Investigators have found videos and books that will be analyzed in great detail, Lang said.<br><br>With the help of one book, Kampusch taught herself how to knit, according to Lang.<br><br>Police also were examining notes and shopping lists found in Kampusch's cell and the house, Lang said, adding that investigators had not found a diary.<br><br>Police also were trying to determine if Priklopil had an accomplice, but "questioning of Natascha has shown that there was no second offender," Lang said.<br><br>Based on information available so far, neither Priklopil's mother nor a male friend he contacted while on the run Wednesday before committing suicide were involved in the act, Lang told APA.<br><br>Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. <p></p><i></i>
