A former Miss World beauty queen who was brutally stabbed and raped almost a decade ago is set to recount the graphic details of the crime in a documentary to help other women.
Israeli model Linor Abargil was 18 years old and seven weeks away from winning the Miss World title when she was attacked after taking part in a Milan fashion show, UK's The Sunday Times reports.
In the documentary, to be produced and directed by actor Gregory Peck's daughter Cecilia Peck, Abargil will recall the horrific details of the attack.
“I’ll tell the whole story, all the details, everything. I don’t want to be ashamed of what happened to me," The Sunday Times quoted Abargil as saying.
"Films show the details of other crimes all the time, so I will show the details of rape. If you don’t want to see it, you don’t have to watch,” she said.
Abargil, now 28, will tell how she accepted the offer of a lift to Rome in an Israeli travel agent's car after he told her all the flights there were fully booked.
But once on the outskirts of the city, the travel agent, Uri Shlomo, stopped his BMW and stabbed her.
He taped her mouth and hands and raped her repeatedly before trying to strangle her with a cord and a plastic bag.
Abargil managed to convince her attacker to let her go and what followed was a long quest for justice.
Abargil reported the crime to Italian police the next day but Shlomo was only questioned and then released.
After much campaigning, Israeli investigators took up the case and eventually tricked Shlomo into travelling to Israel where he was arrested and sentenced to 16 years in jail.
Abargil said it was not her celebrity status but her determination that saw her attacker put behind bars.
“I got him jailed not because I was Miss World but because I wanted to get him into prison," The Sunday Times quoted her as saying.
"I never gave up, I knew from the beginning that I would win.”
Abargil said she was often approached by rape victims for advice and hoped the film would inspire others to seek justice as well.
“I want to connect with women who have been raped,” Abargil said.
“If I’d made this documentary 10 years ago, it would have been as a victim. Today I will make it as a survivor.”
Abargil admits she has is still sometimes haunted by her rape.
“I get flashbacks or nightmares sometimes. For good or bad, it’s part of who I am,” she said.
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