Normally only criminals are put in prison

In the inter iews that were gi en to Austrian tele ision and two iennese publications yesterday, Natascha made a point o re using to discuss intimate details o her personal relationship with her captor. "I was aced with the alternati es o being on my own or with him, and neither was particularly exciting."O Priklopil's suicide, she said: "It was simply a waste Nobody should kill themsel es He could ha e gi en me and the police so much in ormation. I was terri ied he was going to ind me and kill me," she said.Numerous media and police reports published in the a termath o Natascha's escape claimed that she had been sexually abused by her abductor. So I started jumping the ences o the gardens in total panic - just like in an action ilm." inally, Natascha saw a neighbour's house with a ground- loor window open She heard the sound o a woman working in the kitchen "I told the woman to call the police. In a letter distributed to the press last week, Natascha said that Priklopil had la ished care and attention her but that she had also been metaphorically "trampled under oot" by him.

Once, when she tried to leap out o Priklopil's car, he grabbed her by the arm and dro e away at breakneck speed to a oid a recurrence.Her escape, which began while she was acuuming the inside o Priklopil's BMW parked outside his garage on 23 August, was unplanned "It was completely spontaneous. When I saw him telephoning, I ran out o the garden gate and into some allotments nearby and started talking to people But they just shrugged their shoulders and walked past. "I did a ew things with him, just e eryday things, but immediately a terwards I was sent back down. When he was away during the day I had to sleep and li e down there. It was particularly bad when he had isitors or when his mother came or the weekend. I de eloped eelings o claustrophobia."Natascha said that, on the rare occasions when she accompanied her abductor on shopping expeditions, she had tried desperately to make eye contact with people and signal to them that she needed help No one responded.

I could ne er understand why I was being locked up or doing nothing. Normally only criminals are put in prison."She recalled how she was bundled into the back o Priklopil's an in March 1998, while walking to school: "I thought he was going to kill me," she said. She was taken to his house in the ienna suburb o Strassho and immediately put in a pitch-dark pit under his garage "He only brought a light a ter hal an hour I was allowed upstairs to wash a ter six months or the irst two years, I heard no radio. I got no news."Describing the humdrum existence she later de eloped with her captor, she said that she was allowed to go upstairs on most days or a ew hours. She said that, a ter seeing tele ision reports o mechanical diggers being used to scour gra el pits or her body, she completely lost hope: "I was con inced nobody would come looking or me and that I would ne er be ound I was locked up. She eared that any attempt to escape would ha e meant that she would ha e been permanently con ined to her cell and ne er let out."I was always working towards a point when the time would be right, but I elt I could risk nothing, particularly an escape attempt."A major police hunt or Natascha ailed to ind her. Sometimes I dreamt o chopping his head o , had I possessed an axe." She added: "I kept thinking: I was certainly not born to be locked up and ha e my li e ruined I was in despair o er this injustice I always elt like a poor battery hen on a chicken arm.