Vexing issues in kidnap case

VIENNA, Austria — She dashed to freedom the moment she got a chance but reportedly wept inconsolably when told her "master" had thrown himself in front of a train. She had a tearful reunion with her parents yet hasn't asked for them since.

New details — and fresh questions — emerged Saturday about Natascha Kampusch's welfare after her ordeal at the hands of a man who yanked her off a suburban street when she was 10 and confined her to a squalid, windowless cell for more than eight years.

For the first time, a lawyer offered a glimpse into how Kampusch is faring since her dramatic flight Wednesday from her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, as he made a cell-phone call at his house in the town of Strasshof, just north of Vienna.

Erich Zwettler of the Federal Criminal Investigations Bureau said the young woman — who had a brief and emotional reunion with her family after her escape — had not expressed a desire to see them again. Zwettler said Kampusch would not be questioned again until Monday at the earliest.

"She urgently needs a break," he said. "She needs her rest."

That pained her father, Ludwig Koch, desperate to have five minutes with the daughter he never expected to see alive again.

The Austria Press Agency, citing a senior investigator, said Koch begged police to be allowed to have a cup of coffee with her and snap a few photographs to share with the extended family. Police declined, fearing the photos would end up splashed across newspapers and on television because of intense interest in the case, long one of Austria's greatest mysteries.

But later Saturday, Koch excitedly told reporters his daughter sent him a letter that read, in part: "We'll have all the time in the world."

Police psychologists have suggested Kampusch may have suffered from so-called "Stockholm Syndrome," where victims adapt to what otherwise would be insufferable situations by identifying with their captors.

Although authorities said Priklopil at least initially insisted that his captive call him "master," the newspaper Kurier cited an unidentified investigator as saying she burst into tears when told this week he was dead.

She told investigators she had "sexual contact" with her kidnapper, police said on Saturday.

Whether the sexual contact disclosed by Natascha Kampusch, now 18, was consensual or forced on her was not yet clear, and federal police spokesman Erich Zwettler refused further comment.

Zwettler confirmed a Vienna newspaper report that Kampusch told investigators shortly after she escaped that she had had "sexual contact" with Priklopil, 44, but did not elaborate.

In most cases, The Associated Press does not identify victims or alleged victims of sexual assault. In this case, however, the name of the girl has been widely reported because of the circumstances of her abduction.

Kampusch, who was being kept in a secure and undisclosed location, was "for the moment well" and enjoying some private time reading newspapers and watching TV, said Monika Pinterits, an attorney who said she spent several hours at her side.

Describing her as "very intelligent and very eloquent," Pinterits told the Austria Press Agency that Kampusch objected to being pitied in news accounts about her.