Austrian hostage girl to give first interview

VIENNA, Sep 4 (Reuters) Austrian Natascha Kampusch will give her first interview about her eight-year hostage ordeal on Wednesday to state broadcaster ORF, her adviser Dietmar Ecker said today, although apparently her image will not be shown.

Kampusch, whose fate has mesmerised Austria since sprinting to her freedom last month, has been at the centre of an international media frenzy since she escaped from her small cell beneath a garage where she had been kept since 1998.

''It goes without saying for Natascha Kampusch that the people of Austria -- especially those who have feared for her life eight years ago and who have been so happy about her escape -- have a priority to be informed,'' Ecker said in a statement.

''This is why Natascha Kampusch will give her first big interview to the ORF,'' he said.

Kampusch, now 18, dashed to freedom on August 23 during a moment when her captor Wolfgang Priklopil was distracted away from watching her vacuum his BMW automobile.

The communications technician had abducted her on her way to school and kept Kampusch locked up in the small, windowless cell in a sedate commuter town of Strasshof just outside Vienna. He later killed himself by jumping under a train.

So far, Kampusch's only public comment was a statement read out by a psychiatrist at a news conference last week.

In it, she said she would not answer intimate questions and asked the media to be patient until she was ready to tell the story herself.

But Ecker said Kampusch would not be recognisable. So far media have used pictures taken before she was abducted or computer-created images of her instead of real pictures.

''(She will not be shown) so that you could recognise her on the street afterwards,'' Ecker told APA. ''She will be protected.'' International news organisations have bid hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure rights to Kampusch's first interview, according to Austrian media reports.

Kampusch has declined some very high offers, Ecker told Austrian news agency APA, without giving any details.

ORF said it would not pay for the interview but would market the broadcast rights internationally and pass on the proceeds to Kampusch.

However, daily newspaper Kronen-Zeitung and weekly magazine News, which will be the only print media to jointly interview her, have offered her career and educational support as well as help with housing, Ecker said.

Their interviews will also be published on Wednesday.

ORF said it would broadcast the interview on Wednesday at 1815 GMT after recording it tomorrow. The broadcaster said it did not know how long the interview would be.

''That really depends on her psychological condition,'' an ORF spokesman said.

REUTERS AB KP2130