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Natascha may get compensation
15/02/2008 14:41 - (SA)
Vienna - Austria may compensate a kidnapped girl held captive for more than eight years because of negligence in the search for her, Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer said in an interview published on Friday.
"We must discuss a sort of arrangement with Natascha Kampusch's lawyers," he told the daily Kronen Zeitung.
One of those lawyers, Gerald Ganzger, told the paper that informal talks had begun with a view to an out-of-court settlement.
Earlier this month Interior Minister Gunther Platter announced a special commission to probe the police investigation after a parliamentary committee revealed that an officer had questioned kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil just a month after the girl went missing.
Kampusch, who was just 10 when she was abducted in March 1998 and was not heard of again until her escape in August 2006, said she was "outraged" by the committee's findings.
Ganzger suggested she could bring a legal case against the state if police negligence was proven.
Parliamentary committee member Peter Pilz said the officer had reported his suspicion of Priklopil but the report was ignored by the officer's superiors.
Former police chief Herwig Haidinger had also told the committee that important leads had not been followed up in the case.
Priklopil committed suicide just hours after Kampusch escaped.
- AFP
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