Austrian Kidnap Teenager 'mourns' for Her Captor

The Austrian teenager who spent more than eight years imprisoned in a dingy underground cell until her escape last week yesterday spoke fondly of the man who kidnapped her, describing him as "part of my life".

Natascha Kampusch, 18, said that she was now "mourning" her 44-year-old kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil, who killed himself hours after her dramatic escape on Wednesday from his Vienna home.

"He wasn't my master. I was equally strong, but - speaking symbolically - he lifted me up and kicked me down," she said, adding: "He and I both knew that he had messed with the wrong person."

She also said that despite her long ordeal shut away from the world she felt she had not missed much. "It's true I had a different youth from other people, but I never had the feeling in principle that I'd missed anything," she said, adding that her captivity meant she was spared "smoking, drinking and bad friends".

Ms Kampusch said her kidnapper, who snatched her on March 2 1998, while she was on her way to school, had acted alone.

After her carefully prepared abduction, both of them then decorated her underground "room", she revealed. She also gave details of their life together.

"It followed a certain pattern. We ate breakfast together - most of the time he didn't work. There was housework, reading, watching TV, talking and cooking. That was it, for years. Everything bound up with the fear of being alone," she said. In her statement, read for her by her psychologist, Ms Kampusch also described how she finally managed to escape.

She had been vacuuming her kidnapper's car in the garden. When he moved away to make a mobile phone call, she left the vacuum cleaner running, and took her "opportunity" to flee, she said, adding: "I didn't cry after my escape. There was no reason for sadness.

"In my eyes his death wasn't necessary ... He was a part of my life. In a certain way I mourn for him because of this."

Her self-assured, and at times defiant, remarks appear to confirm fears that Ms Kampusch is suffering from an acute form of Stockholm syndrome, where kidnap victims sympathise with their captors.

Since her escape she has met her divorced parents, Ludwig Koch, 50, and Brigitte Sirny, 55, only once. Yesterday she said that, for the moment, she only wanted to keep in touch with them by phone.

Police have described Ms Kampusch as "highly intelligent". But they also say that despite her sophisticated and high German vocabulary - acquired from hours of listening to the radio in her cellar - emotionally she is still a highly vulnerable 10-year-old.

Yesterday, Ms Kampusch refused to answer questions about whether she had slept with her kidnapper, and hinted that the media who have offered huge sums for her story were behaving voyeuristically. "I know you are curious about my circumstances and want more precise details about how I lived. But I can assure you in advance that I'm not going to answer any questions of an intimate or personal nature," she said. "Everyone wants to ask me intimate questions, but that's nobody's business."