The lawyer for a British model allegedly abducted in Milan by kidnappers who tried to auction her online says any doubts about her story have been dismissed.
Chloe Ayling told Italian police she was attacked by two men as she attended a photoshoot last month, before being drugged and transported in a bag to Borgial, an isolated village near Turin.
The 20-year-old’s captor allegedly wanted to auction her as a sex slave online but released her after six days and took her to the British consulate in Milan.
It has emerged that Ayling, from south London, went shopping for groceries and shoes with her captor, prompting questions about the degree of coercion she was under.
But her lawyer, Francesco Pesce said she was scared to offer any resistance to her abductor’s wishes, particularly as she believed there were other members of a gang involved who would harm her if she tried to flee.
“There were legitimate doubts [about her story] at the start, which were surpassed,” Pesce told the Guardian. “What Chloe told police during 10 hours, it wasn’t easy on her. If the police were convinced [of the story] after that, then I am convinced. What also would be his [the abductor’s] motive [to collaborate]? Twenty years in jail?”
He said Ayling initially had her wrists and ankles tied but was later unbound and taken shopping. Pesce said the model was told she was to be sold to the Middle East for sex. He stressed that she had repeated her story multiple times, to police and before a judge.
“I heard people doubting her and implying that she was somehow involved in this case, that she was somehow involved in this because it was too easy an escape and that I really can’t believe, that people think that about Chole Ayling,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “She was subjected to a tremendous ordeal and she suffered so much.” He said such suggestions were “evil”