WASHINGTON – The British model who police say was kidnapped in Italy lastsummer to be auctioned online as a sex slave suffered physical violence -including being drugged and “brutally transported inside a suitcase,”according to Italian investigators.

The grim details on the alleged abduction of Chloe Ayling were revealedWednesday during the trial of 30-year-old Lukasz Pawel Herba, according tothe Italian news agency ANSA. Herba, a Pole who lives part-time in England,was charged with kidnapping Ayling in July after she was lured from Londonto a fake photo shoot at an abandoned storefront in Milan, according toItalian police.

As reported by The Washington Post, Ayling said last summer that herkidnappers were preparing to “auction” her on the dark Web, a part of theinternet where user identities are hidden through encryption, allowing themto buy and sell criminal goods. The kidnappers were trying to sell Ayling,20, on the internet as a sex slave for $300,000, according to Italianpolice and media accounts.

Ayling told Italian investigators at the time that she was drugged, gagged,bound and stuffed into a duffel bag, then transported in the trunk of a carto a remote farmhouse outside Turin. There, she slept with her hands andfeet tied to furniture, the investigators said.

During Herba’s trial Wednesday, investigators said the model was put under”psychological pressures” during the abduction, ANSA reported. Herba wasarrested July 17, shortly after freeing Ayling and dropping her off at theBritish consulate in Milan, police said. British and Italian media reportedthat the kidnappers freed Ayling after learning she was the mother of a2-year-old boy.

Herba’s brother, Michal Konrad Herba, is also accused in the kidnapping andwas arrested in Britain last summer. He is awaiting extradition fromEngland, according to ANSA.

Ayling described the kidnapping in a statement to police last summer, whichwas published by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera:

“A person wearing black gloves came up from behind and put one hand on myneck and the other on my mouth, while a second person, wearing a blackbalaclava, injected me in my right arm.

“I think I lost consciousness. When I woke up I was wearing a pink bodysuitand the socks I’m in now. I realized I was in the boot of a car, with mywrists and ankles tied and my mouth taped. I was inside a bag, with only asmall hole that allowed me to breathe.”

She screamed and struggled so loudly, she said, that her kidnappers had topull over three times to try to silence her while en route to their safehouse.

Ayling’s lawyer in Italy, Francesco Pesce, said last summer that he wasstumped as to why Ayling was dropped off at the British consulate.

“She suffered a lot. It was an awful experience . . . and to believe thatshe would never see her family again,” he told the Guardian. – TheWashington Post