Kidnap Woman Stakes Claim to Captor's House

Austrian kidnapping victim Natascha Kampusch has launched a bid to claim the house and assets of her captor, instructing lawyers to take legal action over the scene of her confinement for eight years.

Günter Harrich, Ms Kampusch's lawyer, said she would lodge a claim to the house and property of Wolfgang Priklopil which will include two-thirds of his house in Stasshof, north-east of Vienna (one third belongs to his mother), and 24% of the company where he worked.

Dr Harrich, a Vienna lawyer, said he met Ms 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.

Ms Kampusch, 18, 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 in 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. Ms Kampusch is also expected to be paid around €665,000 (£450,000) in compensation by the state of Austria under the country's criminal injuries compensation board.

Real estate experts have estimated the value of the house and property in Strashoff at around £120,000.

In the meantime, she 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," Mr Ecker said.

Ms Kampusch released a statement on Monday saying she mourned the man who abducted her and did not feel she had missed out on much during her captivity.

Her statement prompted further suggestions from 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 Ms 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, Ms Kampusch has had minimal contact with her parents, who are separated, and has refused to return to either of them. It is understood 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 the country's leading psychiatrists.

Her lawyer has set up a special account to deal with donations from people who want to give money to help her get back on her feet.