Weird ‘kidnap’
Vic hand-in-hand with ‘abductor’
A British model at the center of a bizarre kidnapping drama was pictured holding hands with her alleged abductor and strolling down a street in Italy the day before she was set free, a Milan court heard.
Security footage shows Chloe Ayling hand-in-hand with Lukasz Herba, 30, in Turin wearing matching white T-shirts and jeans, according to The Express UK.
Polish-born Herba is accused of drugging the 20year-old Ayling with ketamine when she turned up for a bogus photo shoot at an abandoned Milan storefront last July.
Ayling told investigators she was gagged and bound, stuffed into a duffel bag and transported in the trunk of a car to a remote cottage, where she slept with her hands and feet tied to furniture for six days.
Police said a group calling itself Black Death sought to auction her online into sex trafficking with a starting bid of $353,000.
But CCTV footage played in court Wednesday, the first day of Herba’s trial, showed the pair walk- ing together the day before the model was dropped off at the British consulate in Milan.
She claims her abductors set her free after finding out she has a 2-year-old child.
Her lawyer, Francesco Pesce, said Thursday that the footage is misleading and that Ayling was terrified.
“She doesn’t appear to be happy or smiley,” he told the BBC. “She acts like a hostage.”
Doubt was cast on Ayling’s account when it emerged that she had gone shoe shopping during her alleged captivity.
Herba has claimed she plotted the whole thing along with him in a desperate bid for fame.
Ayling has since parlayed her ordeal into speaking gigs and a book deal.