BUDAPEST | A 71-year-old French retiree was held captive for a year and a half in an unsanitary garden shed in Hungary by a couple who wanted to take advantage of their home, justice said Thursday.
After gaining the trust of the old lady, who had enjoyed a residence in Siofok not far from the famous Lake Balaton since the 1990s, the 42-year-old man and 41-year-old woman moved in with her.
Then they persuaded her to donate her apartment to their minor child while retaining her usufruct right, according to a statement from the Siofok County Attorney General’s Office.
In 2017, claiming renovation work, they had him moved before locking him up in early 2018 following an argument in a dilapidated 6m2 shed located at the bottom of a garden.
The screened hut, not insulated, closed from the outside, which had previously served as a shelter for the pigs and shed, offered no heating or amenities.
It was equipped with a bed, a table, a bedside lamp and a radio. The couple came to feed their victim once a day, sometimes allowed to walk under surveillance.
In March 2018, neighbors who were worried about the lady’s absence notified the police and the couple took her home for a while, to reassure everyone, before locking her again in her shed.
It was not until September 2019, following a report, that the police came to release her.
The man and woman were charged with deprivation of liberty and harassment. They face four and a half years in prison. Their trial should begin “in six months,” a spokesperson for the prosecutor, Gabor Caspo, told AFP.