 "Freed from Hamas, drugged & raped by fitness influencer: The harrowing tale of ex-Israeli hostage Mia Schem")
Freed from Hamas captivity in November 2023, a young Israeli woman has accused a popular fitness trainer in Tel Aviv of drugging and raping her.
Mia Schem , 22, said the man persuaded her to host a meeting at her home by claiming a Hollywood producer would be there. She said the assault took place during that meeting.
The trainer is said to be a familiar face on social media, known for working with celebrities, including a former prime minister.
Mia, a French-Israeli national, became widely recognised after a video was released showing her with a bandaged arm during her time in captivity in Gaza . She said the attack happened after she returned home.
In this explainer, we look at what the Israeli woman has accused the trainer of, how the incident took place, who the suspect is, the developments in the case, and a short background on Mia.
What happened?
Schem shared her experience in a recent interview with Israel’s Channel 12.
“This was my biggest fear in life. Before captivity, during captivity, and it happened after the captivity, at my home, in the place meant to be safest for me,” she told the channel.
The case had been reported earlier, but many details, including the names of those involved, were under a gag order.
She said the incident took place last month and that she has been left deeply affected, struggling to cope since then.
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More Shorts“I’ve decided to tell the truth. I’m not the one who needs to hide,” Schem said at the start of what was her first interview since identifying herself as the complainant.
She alleged that the man, who had given her three training sessions in the past, said he wanted to connect her with a Hollywood producer interested in making a film based on her survival in Gaza.
According to her, when the producer did not turn up at the hotel lobby, the trainer arranged to meet again - this time at her home.
Schem recalled that on the day of the meeting, the man arrived two hours late. When he got there, he asked her closest friend, who was also at the flat, to leave, saying the meeting was sensitive.
She said her memory from that point became unclear. “My body remembers; it feels everything,” she said in the interview. “But I don’t know what happened.”
“It took me three days to connect the physical sensations to consciousness,” she added.
In the days that followed, her friend and family noticed she was not herself and became concerned.
Since then, Schem said she has started to remember glimpses of what took place: the trainer coming into her room while she was not dressed and another person in the apartment.
One of her friends suggested she might have been drugged. Schem said she went to the police, who then sent her to a support centre for survivors of sexual assault.
A medical check-up, according to reports, showed signs of sexual activity. Schem also said she had unexplained marks on her body following the alleged incident.
What do we know about the suspect? What happened in the investigation?
After the complaint Schem made to the police, the fitness trainer was arrested in late March. Around the same time, word began to spread on social media about a freed hostage being sexually assaulted, with speculation over the identities of both the woman and the suspect.
Security camera footage from Schem’s building, aired by Channel 12, showed the trainer arriving at 4:00 pm, followed by another man at 6:30 pm. Notably, the second man was not the Hollywood producer she had been told about.
According to a report by The Times of Israel, the man is believed to live in the US, but his identity has not been confirmed.
The trainer was later released but is still considered a suspect as the investigation continues.
He has strongly denied having any sexual contact with Schem. However, police said his version of events has changed more than once, and a polygraph test reportedly showed that he was not honest when answering questions about sexual contact.
During questioning, the trainer is said to have claimed that Schem “destroyed his life.” He was repeatedly quoted by Ynet as saying, “I’m a good person.”
Messages he sent to Schem after their meeting have also drawn attention. One message read, “What a night, wow,” followed by another saying, “Yoel was really impressed by you. He’s checking into it,” according to Haaretz.
What happened to Schem during captivity?
The 21-year-old, who holds both Israeli and French citizenship, was attending a music festival in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants crossed the border and attacked the site.
She was released on November 30 that year during a weeklong ceasefire .
Speaking to Israel’s Channel 13 TV after her release, Schem said she was taken after escaping her friend’s car, which had caught fire.
She recalled that her captor began touching her upper body inappropriately, but stopped when she screamed and he saw she had been shot in the arm and was seriously injured.
Schem became known around the world when Hamas released a video showing her in captivity just days after she was taken.
In the video, she is seen lying in bed with someone bandaging her right arm. She says she wants to go home. At the time, it was the first public sign that the hostages were still alive.
With inputs from agencies
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