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11. 01. 10. - 16:00

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11. 01. 10. - 16:00

Kampusch dad doubts kidnapper acted alone

By Thomas Hochwarter

Kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch’s dad has said he doubts his daughter’s kidnapper acted alone.

Graz and Vienna state prosecutors – who restarted investigations into the kidnap case last year – said last Friday pervert Wolfgang Priklopil had no accomplices as he kept Kampusch locked in a cellar dungeon between 1998 and 2006.

But 21-year-old Kampusch’s father, Ludwig Koch, said: "The case has not, for me, been clarified. I want to make sure there is no one running around who has anything to do with the crime."

He added though that he would be "happy" if investigators’ conclusions turned out to be true.

Speaking to newspaper Heute, Koch said he had "spent years" trying to find his daughter who was snatched off the street on her way to school in Vienna aged ten.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Kampusch said he hoped the state prosecutors’ announcements would "put an end to the appalling accusations and speculations" surrounding her kidnap and captivity.

Some newspapers and magazines have speculated Priklopil had not been acting on his own and Ludwig Adamovich, the head of a special commission set up to investigate the case, made headlines last year when he claimed possible accomplices of the pervert jailer might be planning to kill Kampusch to stop her exposing them.

The former head of the Federal Constitutional Court was also fined 5,000 Euros with another 5,000 on probation when he suggested what Kampusch’s time in captivity might have been better than her childhood up to then.

Austrian Times

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