Enslaved Austrian Girl Rejects Pity

Tests on DNA taken from the man who enslaved a young girl for eight years show he was not involved in any other known crimes, police said Saturday. Scores of Austrians offered support and prayers for the girl, whose lawyer described her as "well" but indignant about being portrayed as a victim.

Erich Zwettler of Austria's Federal Criminal Investigations Office said genetic material from Wolfgang Priklopil, who died Wednesday after throwing himself in front of a Vienna commuter train within hours of Natascha Kampusch's dramatic escape, turned up no hits in a nationwide databank.

The results mean that Priklopil, 44, was not wanted "anywhere in Austria in connection with a criminal offense," Zwettler told the Austria Press Agency.

Police Maj. Gen. Gerhard Lang said that virtually rules out the possibility that Priklopil was a serial predator who preyed on other girls.

Zwettler said Kampusch, who continues to be kept in a secure and undisclosed location, has not asked for contact with her parents — with whom she was briefly and emotionally reunited this week — and would not be questioned again until Monday at the earliest.

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

Monika Pinterits, a lawyer who said she spent several hours with Kampusch, told Austrian media Saturday she was "for the moment well" and enjoying some private time reading newspapers and watching television.

But Pinterits, who described Kampusch as "very intelligent and very eloquent," said she had objected to being pitied in news accounts about her.

"She is not the poor victim — she is an adult young woman," she said. "Natascha Kampusch expects her person and privacy to be respected."

Kampusch, now 18, was only 10 when she was abducted on her way to school on March 2, 1998.

Police said she was held in a tiny, windowless basement cell by Priklopil, a communications technician, who reportedly initially forced the girl to call him "Master."

APA said Zwettler initially also confirmed a report in the Austrian daily Kurier which said Priklopil had sexual contact with Kampusch, who allegedly gave details to a female police officer. Later, he backed off that statement, saying the federal police could not officially confirm the nature of the relationship.

The newspaper, citing an unidentified investigator, reported Saturday that Kampusch wept inconsolably when she was told of her captor's death. It said that at least some of the sexual activity was consensual, based on excerpts from diaries that the girl reportedly kept.

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

Kurier said investigators have determined that Priklopil engaged in elaborate plans to build the hidden cell at least a year before the kidnapping, when he carried out extensive excavation work on his basement. He kept a small photo album of the project, the newspaper said.

Photos released by police showed a small, cluttered room with narrow concrete stairs leading down from an entrance so small it would have to be crawled through. Another photo showed a metal hatch that sealed the windowless, underground room.

Authorities said there was a bed and a toilet in the cramped space. Images on TV showed a small television in the room, which also had a sink and piles of books. Police said the woman was occasionally allowed to watch videos and may even have been schooled by her captor.

On Friday, investigators said separate DNA tests confirmed Kampusch's identity as the girl whose mysterious disappearance — and subsequent resurfacing — has held Austrians spellbound.

Newspapers urged people to write e-mails to Kampusch, promising to eventually forward them to her family, and hundreds responded.

"Natascha, I wish with all my heart that you find the strength to return to a normal life," said one posted online Saturday by a Viennese woman who gave her name only as Stefanie. "Nobody can return the lost years to you, but you are strong and you will survive. I'm praying for you."

Interior Minister Liese Prokop told reporters Friday that authorities had given up hopes of finding Kampusch alive. "We were only looking for a corpse," Prokop said.

Zwettler said Kampusch escaped in an unguarded moment while her abductor stepped away from her to talk on his cell phone so that he could hear better while she was vacuuming his car just north of Vienna in the town of Strasshof, a semi-rural community of tidy houses adorned with flower boxes.

Police continue to comb through the house and are questioning numerous people as they work to determine whether Priklopil acted alone or had any accomplices, Zwettler said.

At the time of Kampusch's abduction, another girl told police she had seen two men drag Natascha into a white van.