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'SO HAPPY'
Brit model Chloe Ayling says ‘now world can see I was telling the truth’ as kidnapper who claimed she faked plot is jailed for 16 years
BRIT model Chloe Ayling has spoken for the first time after her kidnapper Lukasz Herba was locked up for 16 years and nine months today.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, the 20-year-old has told how she's determined to "forge a new path now that the world can see I was telling the truth".
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Chloe was kidnapped when she showed up at a Milan address for a modelling job she had been contacted about online.
She was drugged and stuffed in a black bag before being told she would be auctioned off on the dark web for £250,000.
The mum-of-one was then held for six days at a farmhouse before being released at the British consulate in Milan.
Now with her kidnapper behind bars, Chloe told The Sun of her relief now her ordeal is at an end.
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Chloe said: "I'm so very happy this is all over.
''I am very pleased and relieved by the outcome of today's hearing and feel that justice has been served and I can get closure on what has been a terrible time for me.
''I am desperate to put this ordeal behind me, move on with my life and forge a new path now that the world can see I was telling the truth."
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Chloe added: ''As such I am very thankful to the superb Italian legal system for continually supporting my account of the events I experienced, when some seemed to doubt them, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
''I refuse to be labelled as simply a kidnapped model , or a victim forever.
"I now want to spend some time with my family and gather my thoughts before commenting further.
''I hope this request will be respected. Thank you.''
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Fantasist Herba claimed the model wanted to raise her profile to get more followers on her paid-for site which had “spicy photographs” viewers could look at in exchange for cash.
The kidnapper told the court they met on Facebook planned the “kidnap” together because she told him she was cash strapped.
He said: “She wanted to be a model and she wanted to go on reality TV.
“She said she wanted to raise her profile and that it would be useful to her career to create a scandal.
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“She needed help and so I decided to help her. She had a site where if you paid money you could see spicy photographs.
“She has no money so I said I would help her. I hoped that at the end she would remember me and we could be together. I loved her."
The 30-year-old tried to weasel out of the charges by suggesting he and Chloe had penned the Black Death ransom notes together and even denied she had been drugged.
Kidnapped British model Chloe Ayling in Facebook video posing in bikini in Spain
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Prosecutor Paolo Storari reminded the court Herba had initially claimed to be an “FBI operative and a high level hit man”.
But he added: “He is nothing of the sort. He is a fantasist with narcissistic tendencies.
“Let’s not forget Chloe Ayling was put in a hold-all and kept in the boot of a car for five hours and could have died.
“He treated Chloe not as a person but a thing.
“She could have been allergic to ketamine, she could have suffered from claustrophobia. She could have died.”
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Mr Storari added the only “positive” that had come from the kidnap was that Herba had released Chloe after six days and taken her to the British Consulate in Milan.
He closed his speech by asking the court to sentence Herba to 16 years in jail and boot him out of Italy when eventually released.
Chloe’s lawyer Francecso Pesce said:”She was terrified by what happened. Yes she was seen hand in hand with him shopping but she was in fear of her life and feared for her family.”
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Polish born Herba arrived in court handcuffed between two prison guards and dressed in jeans and a grey hoodie.
His Lawyer Katia Kowlalovska said:”We shall be launching an appeal. I hope to use evidence at that which I was unable to produce at this trial.
“Namely the fact that Chloe’s version when she was first questioned is very different to what she said later.”
She told The Sun:”When I told him the sentence he said he wanted to definitely go to appeal.
“He was hopeful that the court would have been lenient to him as he did not harm her and didn’t collect any ransom.
British glamour model Chloe Ayling shows Italian prosecutors the 'photography studio' in Milan where she claims Lukasz Herba kidnapped her
Model Chloe Ayling describes how she had to sleep next to her kidnapper
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“It’s a shame we were not able to cross examine Chloe in court.”
Mum-of-one Chloe, from Coulsdon, Surrey, has decided not to travel to the hearing telling her lawyer Francecso Pesce it would be ''awful to see him again after what happened''.
On her Instagram she has posted glam pictures of her in the Maldives and Los Angles where she now lives.
Brit model Chloe Ayling caught on CCTV walking hand-in-hand with her ‘kidnapper’ the day before she was released
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