Kampusch 'pities captor'

An Austrian teenager who escaped from her kidnapper one year ago has said she feels increasingly sorry for her kidnapper.

Natascha Kampusch, now 19, was snatched as a ten-year-old on her way to school and forced to live in a cell beneath a house.

Her dramatic escape in August 2006 turned her into an international media sensation. Her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, 44, committed suicide after she fled.

Asked about Priklopil, Ms Kampusch said: "I felt a little bit of regret, of pity. All I can say is that I feel more and more sorry for him."

Ms Kampusch spent most of her teenage years in the tiny, windowless cell and only made her escape when Priklopil was distracted by a phone call as she was cleaning his car in the driveway of his home.

"What he did to me has become more distant, (but) it does not fade away, it boils up again and again," she said. "I just try to handle these memories as well as I can, and try to work through them."

The story of her dash to freedom, but also her relationship to Priklopil, with whom she occasionally went shopping and skiing, held media audiences spellbound around the globe.

Ms Kampusch explained why she bade farewell to Priklopil's coffin after his suicide.

She said: "I said farewell, and why shouldn't I have done so? It was important to me, because the last time I saw him alive was when he turned his back to me and I ran away head over heels, but I only said farewell to his coffin, I didn't actually see him."

Ms Kampusch likened her relationship with Priklopil to a wrestling match in which both sides tried to gain the upper hand and also said she had kept the clothing he had provided for her.

"They bear certain memories, these socks and T-shirts kept me warm and I need to keep them - at least for a certain time."

After her escape, Ms Kampusch found herself chased by photographers and journalists and has received offers for film and book rights from Austria and abroad.

Yet while she has shielded herself behind an army of psychiatrists and media advisers and has only given a small number of interviews, some in her family opted for the limelight.

Her mother launched an emotional book about her own eight years without Natascha earlier this month, describing Ms Kampusch's father, whom she divorced, as an alcoholic and only referred to him by his surname.

Ms Kampusch said she found such behaviour disrespectful and inappropriate, and called her father's interaction with the media "naive", adding she might have to distance herself if her family life deteriorates into a celebrity reality show.

She added: "You will rarely, or even never, see me crying, sobbing or breaking down in public. I'll sort that out in private."

But Ms Kampusch is slowly starting to get her life back on target, taking up archery, learning to drive and catching up on nearly a decade of lost education.

© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.