AUSTRIA:Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch has said she is "appalled and outraged" by claims that police overlooked key evidence that could have spared her eight years in captivity.
The former head of Austria's criminal police says that, after Kampusch escaped in 2006, he found a report written five weeks after her disappearance in March 1988 naming her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, as a suspect.
For eight years, Priklopil kept Kampusch in a hidden room under his house in a Vienna suburb; he committed suicide hours after she escaped in August 2006.
Former police chief Herwig Haidinger says he kept quiet about the report, bowing to pressure from the then Austrian government not to "create a scandal involving the police before the upcoming elections".
Now Kampusch is considering legal action against officials who, she said, tried to "sweep the matter under the carpet".
"I had to wait eight and a half years until I managed to free myself, and all the time there were clear facts pointing to my kidnapper," said Ms Kampusch (19). "I am appalled and outraged at how priorities are being set here."
The interior ministry in Vienna has established an investigation into the case and, in particular, a statement from a police dog handler from April 14th, 1988, five weeks after Natascha went missing.
The statement recommended further investigation of "a certain Wolfgang Priklopil" and contained detailed descriptions of the man's home, character, and his van, which matched the eye-witness description of the kidnap vehicle.
"This man is a loner who has extreme difficulties with his surroundings and problems with [ human] contact," the statement said . . . As for his sexuality he supposedly has an inclination towards children, but it is not known whether he has any previous record for this."