Natascha Kampusch: new questions

The investigation into the incarceration of Natascha Kampusch, who famously escaped from her Austrian tormentor Walter Priklopil in 2006 after spending eight years in his cellar, could be reopened following suggestions that Priklopil may not have been a lone perpetrator but a member of a paedophile ring.

Kampusch, 21, has never given a full account of her years in captivity, from the day in 1998 when, aged 10, she was seized on her way to school and bundled into a van, to her escape in August 2006.

Now an Austrian law professor, Ludwig Adamovich, has asked the Austrian justice minister to launch a new investigation. This follows his examination of files relating to the case which were opened last month after having been sealed by prosecutors when the Kampusch case was officially closed in 2007.

Adamovich told the Sunday Times that documents found in the files showed that Kampusch had never been "adequately questioned" and that many mysteries still surround the case.

For instance, Adamovich says the cellar in which Priklopil held Kampusch was constructed after her kidnapping, not in readiness for it, as police originally claimed. Also, she spent significant periods of time away from Priklopil's house - but where?

On the day Priklopil kidnapped Kampusch, says Adamovich, he took her to a forest where he made calls on a mobile phone, reportedly telling 10-year-old Natascha: "The others are not coming." This suggested at the least that Priklopil had accomplices - something Kampusch has never denied, only saying that she had never seen anyone other than Priklopil.

Finally, at the time of Kampusch's escape in 2006, the Austrian media reported that Priklopil ran off and committed suicide by lying in the path of an oncoming train. But according to Adamovich, eight hours passed between the moment Kampusch made her escape - she was vacuuming her captor's car when he was distracted by a phone call - and the time of his death.

During that period, Adamovich claims Priklopil was able to remove evidence from his house and the cellar. "It remains open what evidence he was seeking to destroy and why," says the professor. ·