Kampusch mother accused of kidnap to hide sex abuse

Judges in Vienna have opened legal proceedings that could alter the story of the Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch by determining whether her mother took part in the abduction to conceal her daughter's involvement in alleged child sex abuse.

Martin Wabl, a former Austrian judge and politician who became involved in investigating the Kampusch case shortly after she was kidnapped while on her way to school in March 1998, told a Vienna court yesterday that he believed Brigitte Sirny, Ms Kampusch's mother, was behind her daughter's disappearance.

Ms Kampusch made a dramatic escape from her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, 44, on 23 August last year. Aged 18, she had been held in an underground cell beneath the garage of his home in a Vienna suburb for eight years. After her escape, Priklopil committed suicide by throwing himself under a train.

Mr Wabl, a former presidential candidate for the Austrian Green party, has repeatedly said Mrs Sirny knew Priklopil. He has alleged that she helped to organise her daughter's disappearance to conceal the fact that Ms Kampusch was abused and photographed in sexually provocative poses and may have been a victim of paedophiles.

Mrs Sirny took out a court injunction against Mr Wabl, preventing him from making such allegations against her and has repeatedly denied any involvement in her own daughter's abduction.

Yesterday, however, Mr Wabl won the right to challenge the injunction on the grounds that it had been invoked without Ms Kampusch being questioned. Austrian lawyers said that, although judges hearing Mr Wabl's plea had taken four weeks to decide, it was highly probable that the case would go ahead and that Ms Kampusch would be obliged to appear as a witness.

Mr Wabl's lawyer said yesterday that his client had evidence from nine people questioned at the time of Ms Kampusch's kidnapping which suggested that Mrs Sirny was implicated. They included Mrs Sirny's neighbours, a former male companion of hers and a senior police officer involved in investigating the case.

One of Mr Wabl's main witnesses, Thomas Vogel, a German national, told Austrian police in the days after Ms Kampusch's abduction that he had evidence about a "paedophile scene" and a "dungeon porn film" which allegedly contained shots of the kidnapped girl.

Max Edelbacher, a former Vienna police chief who was involved in the initial hunt for Ms Kampusch in 1998, is another of Mr Wabl's witnesses. He has said that his investigations led him to conclude that Ms Kampusch was unhappy with her parents and had been forced into sex before her kidnapping. He has revealed details of a family photo album found in Mrs Sirny's home which contained shots of her daughter posing semi-naked in boots and holding a riding crop. Another photograph showed Ms Kampusch, then aged 10, lying on a bed, naked apart from a fur stole.

Brigitte Sirny and Ludwig Koch, Natascha's father, have both vehemently denied any involvement in the kidnapping. Questioned about the possibility after her escape, Ms Kampusch said: "My mother told me that she had nothing to do with Priklopil. I am one hundred per cent certain that she was not lying."

In subsequent interviews, she gave conflicting reports about her relationship with her kidnapper. In one, she said Priklopil had cared for her "every need". In another, she said "I had bad thoughts. Sometimes I dreamt of chopping his head off, had I possessed an axe."

Numerous media and police reports published in the aftermath of her escape last year claimed she had been sexually abused by her kidnapper. However, Ms Kampusch, who now divides her time between her own apartment in Vienna and her mother's flat, has repeatedly refused to discuss the question.

Allan Hall, co-author of Girl in the Cellar, an account of the case, said Mr Wabl's case could shed important new light. "Both Mrs Sirny and Natascha herself still face many questions that need answering," he added.

Her ordeal

2 MARCH, 1998: Natascha, 10, is kidnapped while on her way to school and bundled into the back of a car by her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil. She is held in a sealed car inspection pit beneath his garage in a Vienna suburb.

4 MARCH, 1998: Austrian police begin a full-scale search for her, having initially assumed she had run away and would return.

2001: Austrian police put Ms Kampusch's photo on the internet and go international for the first time, after an intensive three-year search proves fruitless and fears mount that she has been sold to a child pornography ring.

23 AUGUST, 2006: Ms Kampusch escapes and flees from Priklopil's home after eight years in captivity. She is taken into police custody. Priklopil commits suicide by throwing himself under a train.

6 SEPTEMBER, 2006: Ms Kampusch gives her first interview to two Austrian newspapers, as well as Austrian television. Her 45-minute TV appearance is broadcast worldwide. Accompanied by a psychiatrist, she refuses to say whether she had sex with her abductor.

15 MARCH, 2007: An Austrian court opens proceedings to determine whether Ms Kampusch's mother may have been involved in the kidnapping - to conceal that she was being used in alleged child pornography racket.