Austria Kidnap: Victim's Mother in Court

A Vienna court will today open a hearing into whether the mother of the Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch was involved in her abduction.

Martin Wabl, a former judge and politician, has long claimed that Brigitte Sirny was behind her daughter's disappearance on her way to school in 1998.

Ms Sirny secured a court injunction against Mr Wabl several years ago, preventing him from repeating the allegations that first surfaced just days after Ms Kampusch's abduction. She has repeatedly denied any involvement, as has Ludwig Koch, Ms Kampusch's father.

Mr Wabl, a former presidential candidate, has now won the right to review the previous court injunction, which he said was concluded without the possibility of interrogating the most important witness, Natascha Kampusch.

However, after her escape Ms Kampusch told the Austrian newspaper Der Standard: "My mother told me that she'd had nothing to do with [Wolfgang] Priklopil. I'm 100% certain that she's not lying."

Mr Wabl claims Ms Sirny knew her daughter's kidnapper, Priklopil, who committed suicide after Ms Kampusch's escape, and helped in her disappearance to cover up sadomasochistic activities in which the girl had been involved.

Ms Kampusch, 19, who after eight years in captivity escaped the clutches of Priklopil as he cleaned his car last summer, is expected to be called as a witness, as long as doctors find her to be in good health.

Other witnesses include Max Edelbacher, the former Vienna chief of police who led the initial hunt for Ms Kampusch. He has said he believed Ms Kampusch had been forced into sex before her kidnapping, and was "unhappy" about her parents. He said that the discovery in Ms Sirny's family photo albums of pictures of her daughter in "sexy poses" further raised suspicions. In one photograph, he said, Ms Kampusch was almost naked, posing in boots, clutching a riding crop and wearing a crop top. In another she was lying almost naked on a bed, in a fake fur stole.

Another potential witness at the Gleisdorf court will be Thomas Vogel, a German citizen who says he told the Austrian police days after Ms Kampusch's escape about evidence "leading to the paedophile scene", including a "dungeon porn" film allegedly including images of Ms Kampusch. A chief investigator has backed Mr Vogel's claims. A further female witness whose identity is unknown claims to have seen Ms Sirny and Priklopil together.

Mr Wabl is renowned in Austria for what is seen as his somewhat obsessive interest in the so-called Natascha Case. When he first made the claims in 1998 - when he was standing as a presidential candidate for the Greens - he was arrested for abusing his authority and questioned by police. Mr Wabl later offered his services to the interior ministry as an investigator in the case. His offer was not taken up.

Ms Sirny has made no public comment ahead of today's case but is expected to vigorously contest the claims.