Crowds at kidnap woman book launch
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Thursday September 09 2010
Crowds of people have crammed into a book shop amid tight security to attend the launch of an Austrian kidnap victim's account of her ordeal.
Natascha Kampusch was 10 when she was abducted on her way to school. She was held in an underground cell in a Vienna suburb for eight-and-a-half years until she escaped in August 2006.
Her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, committed suicide soon after she got away.
As guards kept watch, people young and old listened attentively and applauded as Kampusch read extracts from her new book - titled 3,096 Tage (3,096 Days) - and explained that she wrote it to start a new life.
In the account, Kampusch, who is now 22, says she was repeatedly beaten, starved and forced to do housework half-naked.
