Austrian Kidnap Victims Describes Her Ordeal In First Interview
Yvonne Lee - All Headline News Staff Reporter Vienna, Austria (AHN) - Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl who was abducted at the age of 10, described her ordeal during her first interview on Wednesday. The now 18-year-old told the weekly magazine 'News', "I asked myself over and over again why this had to happen to me - among all the millions of people, to me." She adds, "I always had the thought: I certainly didn't come into the world to let myself be locked up and my life completely ruined. I was in despair about this injustice. Kampusch escaped from her kidnapper on August 23, after spending more than eight years in an underground prison. Wolfgang Priklopil, 44, seized her as she walked to school in March 1998. He killed himself a few hours after her escape. Kampusch says she had to win his trust gradually. She felt that if she tried to escape and failed, he would never let her out. She says he "suffered very strongly from paranoia and was chronically distrustful." Kampusch was not planning to escape two weeks ago. She was outside the cellar when she saw the kidnapper on the phone. She says, "It was completely spontaneous. I ran out of the garden gate and I got dizzy. I felt for the first time how weak I was. But it was all right." "I ran in panic into a settlement of small gardens and called to people. But in vain - they didn't have mobile phones. They just shrugged and went on." |
