Vienna - Austrian authorities said Friday they would soon start a new probe into the abduction and eight years of incarceration of Natascha Kampusch, in order to investigate whether her abductor had accomplices. The decision came after an independent commission installed by the interior ministry found flaws in the investigations in July.
Kampusch, who is 20 years old today, managed to flee her abductor Wolfgang Priklopil two years ago, after he had abducted her on her way to school in 1998.
The commission found that "there were questions whether there might have been other perpetrators," justice ministry spokesman Thomas Geiblinger told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
Priklopil committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a train on the day that Kampusch fled from her prison in Strasshof, outside of Vienna.
The commission had indirectly criticised police for not following a lead by a girl who said she saw two men abducting Kampusch.
Although Kampusch told Austrian news agency APA she was not aware of other accomplices, she said she was happy about the new probe.
Also, after Kampusch disappeared, police had interrogated Priklopil and searched the van in which he abducted her, but they did not find the girl.
"In my view, these leads were not followed with due professionalism," Kampusch said.
Austrians were shocked when a similar case surfaced last April, in which Elisabeth Fritzl was imprisoned and raped by her father Josef Fritzl in a cellar under the family's house for 24 years. Elisabeth gave birth to seven children during that time.
