As a 27-year old medical student, Dr. Kathrin Espegard, who is married and living in Norway today, was literally attacked in her own home on April 25th, 1987 by an Afro-American man and other “helpers” (including her own mother!), then bound and gagged and held captive against her will for several days, enduring both mental and physical torture. Finally she was placed in a van and brought to Osterwitz, in the Deutschlandsberg district, once again bound hand and foot.   

There, the student was held captive until her adventurous escape in the night of April 29th, 1987. She was subjected to brainwashing (pseudoscientifically and belittlingly called “deprogramming”), in order to force her to depart from her innermost conviction and position of faith.

The mere fact that Dr. Kathrin Espegard, as an adult and an Austrian citizen of legal age, would make use of her right to join a religion and belief of her own free choice, was reason enough for her family to try to bring their own daughter back into the “bosom” of the Catholic Church with brutal force, with the help of an American who was convicted several times previously, and who was wanted by the police.

According to the indictment and the grounds for judgement by the Regional Criminal Court in Graz, the victim had been “held captive illegally, the deprivation of liberty being committed in such a way as to cause particular distress to the prisoner.  Furthermore. Kathrin Espegard was also physically abused and thus recklessly injured.”

According to the verdict, the perpetrators of this crime against Dr. Kathrin Espegard have “committed the crime of causing excessive duress … the crime of deprivation of liberty … and the crime of causing physical harm”. All the defendants were sentenced to suspended prison terms of approx. one year.  

From Drammens Tidende - Buskerud Blad No. 23, Friday, January 28th, 1994

Ål: Kathrin Espegard (33), married and living in Ål, has personally experienced a brutal religious persecution. In 1987, in her native country Austria, she was kidnapped, bound and mentally tortured due to the fact that she had contact with the religious community known as “Smith’s Friends”. She was finally able to flee.
Later, in Ål, she was visited by two German-speaking men. Howevwr, this time she responded more quickly and went into hiding. Kathrin and her husband Oddvar Espegard contacted the police who in turn warned Interpol. The case ended with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs exerting enough pressure on the Austrian authorities to cause the case, which had already been dropped, to be taken up once again. Recently her mother was convicted of kidnapping by the Austrian Supreme Court