Model ‘caught on CCTV hand in hand with her kidnapper’
I was trying to keep him calm, she says
CCTV footage of British glamour model Chloe Ayling holding hands with her alleged kidnapper was shown in court yesterday.
Miss Ayling was snatched by two Polish brothers who threatened to auction her for sex online, a court in Milan heard.
The 20-year-old was lured to a fake photoshoot in the Italian city in July last year. She was drugged, stripped and handcuffed before being bundled into a suitcase in the boot of a car. Lukasz Herba, 36, and his brother Michal, 30, bought gloves and balaclavas and ordered fake identity documents from Poland, the court heard.
The brothers, who lived in the West Midlands, also bought ketamine to drug Miss Ayling and researched how much they needed to inject her with to incapacitate her, it was alleged.
Lukasz is being tried in Milan on charges of kidnapping and faces 25 years in jail if convicted. His brother is in Britain and is trying to block attempts to extradite him to face trial in Italy.
During the opening day of Lukasz’s trial yesterday, it emerged Miss Ayling had been in contact with her kidnapper in 2015 when she was just 17. She had accepted a ‘friend’ request from him on Facebook and sent him at least two messages.
In another twist, the footage of the pair holding hands the day before Miss Ayling was freed was played to the court.
Lukasz’s lawyers accuse the model of staging the ordeal to gain publicity – a claim which was dismissed by a judge at an earlier hearing.
Miss Ayling’s lawyer Francesco Pesce said she held hands because she was under duress. He said: ‘You can tell she is not happy to be holding his hand. She was probably just trying to keep him calm.’ Miss Ayling, from Coulsdon in South London, was abducted after Lukasz called her modelling agency to book her for a shoot, saying he was a photographer.
Days before the abduction, he sent an email to his brother, saying: ‘Buy a big bag because you know what we need it for.’
The bag was allegedly used to carry Miss Ayling’s unconscious body to a car after she was injected Video: Miss Ayling and Lukasz Herba, also left, hold hands with ketamine at the fake studio in Milan. Lukasz then drove her for almost four hours to a remote farmhouse in Borgial, near Turin, where she was held hostage for six days, it was said.
The former DHL delivery driver allegedly sent an email to Miss Ayling’s agent Philip Green, saying: ‘I am mid-level hitman with Black Death. She has been taken by our group and will be sold by our group to Middle Eastern buyers.’
He sent another email claiming that Black Death – a shadowy online trafficking network – would auction her for around £300,000. Lukasz suggested he could act as a mediator, if Mr Green paid a £230,000 ransom in Bitcoin, the online currency. On the second email, Lukasz attached a photo of Miss Ayling wearing a pink bodice.
Two days later Michal allegedly sent Lukasz a text which said: ‘Behave well. Pretend to be her friend. Don’t let her escape. Make her collaborate.’ After six days, Lukasz decided to let her go and took her to the British consulate, where he was detained.
Milan police chief Serena Ferrari said: ‘This is a crime of enormous gravity. A girl who was not quite 20 was attacked, tied up, put in a black bag and transported by car for almost four hours to the mountain area of Borgial where there are no tourists, a few rustic buildings, hardly any inhabitants.
‘She doesn’t speak Italian and no one there spoke English. Lukasz presented himself as a hitman, but a nice one. He says he has kidnapped other women and made £ 15 million. The psychological pressure on her was enormous.’
Describing the moment Miss Ayling is attacked, she added: ‘As she is heading for the studio someone comes from behind and puts their hand over her mouth.
‘A second person in a balaclava gives her an injection which we now know is ketamine. She falls unconscious and wakes up in the car. She is taken to a place which is genuinely in the middle of nowhere.’
The police chief said Lukasz first contacted Mr Green in April and booked Miss Ayling for a photoshoot in Paris, using an alias. But after a terrorist attack in the city he decided to scrap his plan and Miss Ayling returned to London.
He later booked her for the fake job in Milan.
Miss Ferrari told the court that everything Miss Ayling had said had turned out to be true.
The trial continues.