Natascha Kampusch says her captor and Josef Fritzl idolised their mothers

Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian kidnap victim who was kept in a cellar for eight years has compared her captor to Josef Fritzl who imprisoned and raped his daughter in a dungeon, saying both men had an obsession with their mothers.

Miss Kampusch, now 20, was just ten years old when Wolfgang Priklopil abducted her and held her captive in a cellar below his home in Austria.

Now the host of her own television programme, Miss Kampusch said there were clear parallels between Priklopil, 44, and Fritzl, 73, who held his daughter Elisabeth captive and fathered seven children with her. She said that both Prikopil and Fritzl idolised their mothers to an "abnormal degree".

Describing her time in captivity, she said: "Before she (Priklopil's mother) came over to tidy up I'd have to clean the whole house so that she thought he was this proper upstanding person.

"Regardless of what I did, he would always say, 'My mother does it better'."

Fritzl has admitted fantasizing about his mother, saying: "Yes, probably, but I was strong, almost as strong as my mother, and I have therefore managed to suppress my urges.

"I grew up in a poor family. My father was a no-good scoundrel who always cheated on her and my mother threw him out of the house when I was four – and she was quite right to do so. After that, it was only the two of us.

"My mama was a strong woman. She taught me discipline, order and diligence. She enabled me good education and job training and she constantly worked hard and would take difficult jobs only to support the both of us.

"She was as strict as it was necessary. She was the best woman in the world. And I was her husband, in some way. She was the boss at home, but I was the only man in the house."

Prosecutors confirmed that they believed Fritzl acted alone in imprisoning his daughter, saying they could find no evidence that he had any accomplices.

Gerhard Sedlacek, a prosecution spokesman, said that forensic experts did not find traces of DNA in the cellar prison belonging to anyone except Fritzl and his captive family and that Elisabeth told detectives that she never saw or suspected anyone else was in the cellar.

They also ruled out the involvement of Fritzl's wife Rosemarie. Colonel Franz Polzer, a police spokesman, said: "What woman would possibly agree to her husband fathering seven children with her own daughter, had she known about it?"

Mr Sedlacek said forensic experts were now probing the electricity and the ventilation systems of the cellar.

Meanwhile, prosecutors preparing the charges against Fritzl said he was "cooperating" with officials who have questioned him three times in the prison in the regional capital St Pölten. A forensic psychiatrist is now examining Fritzl to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.

The first hearing is expected to take place in autumn or latest by the end of the year and authorities announced it could be closed to the public due to the sensitive nature of the case.

Officials from the St Pölten court initially said that they were considering holding the hearing in a conference hall of a luxury hotel as the courtroom was too small to take all reporters and camera crews, but it was now revealed that the trial was more likely to take place behind closed doors.

Elisabeth, and her children Stefan, 18, Lisa, 15, Monika, 14, Alexander, 12, and Felix, five, have been reunited with their grandmother Rosemarie at an Austrian clinic and are currently undergoing family therapy. The oldest child, Kerstin, 19, has been put into a medically-induced coma following a multiple organ failure, but doctors reported that her condition has improved and that they have initiated the wake-up phase.

Original Article -

Natascha Kampusch says her captor and Josef Fritzl idolised their mothers - Telegraph

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