Austrian kidnapping victim Natascha Kampusch has begun an attempt to claim her captor’s house and assets, instructing lawyers to take legal action over the scene of her confinement for eight years.
Günter Harrich, her lawyer, said that the 18-year-old would lodge a claim to the assets of Wolfgang Priklopil which will include two-thirds of his house (one third belongs to his mother) in Stasshof, north-east of Vienna, and his 24% share of the company which he worked for.
Dr Harrich said he met Kampusch on Tuesday to go over her rights to financial assistance, including the possibility of her getting the proceeds from the eventual sale of the house where she was confined.
Kampusch managed to flee after eight years in captivity while vacuuming Priklopil’s car when he was on the phone. He had kidnapped her when she walked to school as a 10-year-old on the morning of March 2 1998.
The 44-year-old communications engineer locked her into a purpose-built cell beneath the garage of his house in the town, which is half an hour’s drive from Vienna. He killed himself hours after her escape a week ago, throwing himself under a train.
Kampusch is also expected to be paid around â,¬665 000 in compensation by the state of Austria under its criminal injuries compensation board.
Real estate experts estimate the value of the house and property in Strashoff at around $177 759. In the meantime, newspaper reports said that Kampusch has employed an Austrian PR adviser, Dieter Ecker, to negotiate one interview, in the hope that if she tells of her ordeal once, she may be left alone to recover.
”It depends on her progress, but there will probably be one or a maximum of two interviews next week in the hope it will satisfy some of the enormous interest in her story and after which she hopes to be left alone,” Ecker said.
Kampusch released a statement on Monday saying that she mourned the man who had abducted her, and she did not feel she had missed out on much during her captivity.
Her statement led to further suggestions by psychiatrists that she may be suffering from Stockholm syndrome, in which hostages cope with insufferable situations by identifying with their captors. Dr Rainhard Haller, a psychiatrist who has been assigned to the case as a court expert, indicated that there could have been a love relationship between Kampusch and her captor.
”Priklopil was not only the dominant and cruel kidnapper, but also a father, a friend and possibly a lover,” he said.
”The diversity of their relationship, which is proving so difficult to express, is probably a reason why she wants her private sphere protected at all costs.”
Since her escape, Kampusch has had minimal contact with her parents, who are separated, and has refused to return to either of them. It is understood that on the morning of her disappearance she had quarrelled with her mother.
Now being held in a ”sanatorium-like” environment, she is being treated by Austria’s leading psychiatrists.
Her lawyer has set up a special account to deal with donations coming from people who want to give money to help her get back on her feet. – Guardian Unlimited Â