As Kim Kardashian's high-profile Paris robbery trial unfolds, we will be bringing you regular updates on key moments and highlights in real-time. Scroll down for latest timeline.
In 2016, Kim Kardashian made a quick trip to Paris Fashion Week. She sat in the front row at Balmain, Balenciaga and Givenchy and hit the town with her family and then-husband Kanye West. But during her stay, a group of armed robbers stormed into her room, tied her up, and stole an estimated €10m in jewellery. It is thought to have been the biggest robbery of an individual in France in 20 years.
Speaking of the experience during a sit-down interview with David Letterman in 2020, Kardashian described the evening as “seven or eight minutes of torture” as she recalled what had happened in harrowing detail. “They brought in the concierge from downstairs, handcuffed, with a gun up to him. They were yelling at me in French, and I just sat up,” she said. “He grabbed me, and pulled me towards him… I wasn’t wearing anything underneath [my bathrobe]."
Last month, ten suspects, nicknamed the “grandpa robbers” due to their ages which range from 35 to 78, appeared in court on the first day of a month-long trial. Kardashian and her stylist, Simone Harouche, take to the stand today, May 13.
Per a statement from Kardashian's legal team, "Ms. Kardashian is reserving her testimony for the court and jury and does not wish to elaborate further at this time. She has great respect and admiration for the French justice system and has been treated with great respect by the French authorities. She wishes the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion, in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case."
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In the early hours of the morning on October 3, 2016, a group of armed men broke into Kardashian's luxury suite in Hotel de Pourtalès, in the Madeleine neighbourhood of Paris. At 3 am, they burst into the front entrance of the hotel dressed as police. They handcuffed the front desk receptionist, Abderrahmane Ouatiki, and forced him to take them to Kardashian's room.
Kardashian heard the commotion and tried to get help, calling out for her sister Kourtney and her stylist, Stephanie. Her security guard, Pascal Duvier, had gone with her sister to a club. "I knew someone was there to get me," she recalled to David Letterman later. "You just feel it."
The men pushed her onto the bed and demanded her engagement ring. "They kept on saying: the ring, the ring! And I was so startled that it didn't compute for a minute," she said.
They took the ring, worth $4 million, along with other jewellery and €1000 in cash.
Kardashian, who was wearing nothing but a robe, was terrified that she would be assaulted. “This is the time I’m going to get raped,” she said. "I’m like: ‘What is happening? Are we gonna die? Just tell them I have children. I have babies, I have a husband, I have a family.’”
Instead, they tied her up with zip ties and left her in the bathroom, before fleeing the scene on bikes and on foot. "They wrapped duct tape over my eyes and my mouth,” she said. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life, just thinking that, you know, you’re about to die. You’re just kind of bracing yourself for the moment that they’re going to shoot you and kill you. That 10 minutes really changed my whole life.”
Kardashian gave a statement to police later that morning before flying back to the US the following day.
After the crime, a manhunt began. Police found DNA traces on the plastic zipties used to tie Kardashian’s wrists, which led to the arrest of 17 people in January 2017. Twelve men were later charged. The trial, which began yesterday, has been delayed since 2021. Ten of those 12 will be tried in the trial this month — one suspect died before the case reached trial, while another is suffering from dementia.
Aomar Ait Khedache, a 68-year-old known as “Old Omar”, is one of the accused. He is believed to have orchestrated the robbery. Although he has admitted participating, he denies being as the group’s ringleader.
Yunice Abbas, a 71-year-old, has also admitted to have taken part. He wrote a memoir about the robbery but was told by courts he wouldn't be allowed to profit from it. He told TF1 TV that the culprits were “all grandads” prior to the trial.
“I had a proposal for a big job, which would be my last … They told me there was a 20-carat diamond that wasn’t protected … That was tempting,” he also said, explaining that he had struggled financially after already serving 20 years in prison for other robberies. "I was told it was the wife of a rapper. I didn’t ask questions.”
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The trial began on 28 April. Abbas has testified that he didn't know who Kardashian was when he agreed to take part in the robbery. He also claimed that he escaped the scene by bike, before falling and dropping a bag of jewels. Apparently, a local woman found the jewels and wore a necklace at work all day before realising what it was.
Abbas testified that he has come to regret the crime over time. “Before I didn't. But this time I do regret what I did… It opened my eyes," he said, adding, “TVs were talking about it all day and it led me to ask myself some questions."
Ouatiki, the night receptionist, has allegedly suffered from PTSD since the ordeal.
Kim Kardashian testified Tuesday that she feared she would be raped and killed during the robbery. “I was certain that was the moment that he was going to rape me,” Kardashian told a French court, recalling how one robber pulled her toward him while she was wearing only a bathrobe. “I absolutely did think I was going to die,” she added.
This testimony marks the first time that Kim has faced the men accused of tying her up at gunpoint in her hotel suite during Fashion Week and stealing more than $6 million in jewellery.
She was pictured arriving at the Paris courthouse ahead of her testimony.
Ahead of Kim's testimony, Harouche recalled the events that led up to the robbery.
The pair had just returned from the Givenchy show.
"I was very tired so I wasn't going to go out for the rest of the evening," she said.
"Kim said she was going to possibly have dinner with a few friends, I was packing and around 23:30 I went to my room."
Harouche claimed she fell asleep and woke to hear Kardashian in distress. “We've been friends since we were little girls,” she said. "So when I heard the sound it was very different and it woke me up — it was a sound I'd never heard from Kim. It was terror."
Harouche claimed she heard Kardashian pleading for her life and she hid in the shower. Eventually, after the robbers had left, Kardashian made her way to Harouche's room, with her feet still bound.
“It was like Kim was not in her body, she was in so much shock and I was still so very afraid because I didn't understand what had happened and didn't know who the men were and whether they were coming back,” the stylist said.
She went on, "I think that moment changed her life forever. I think it changed both of us but I think particularly for her, her loss of freedom — she now has a completely different lifestyle… To lose your sense of freedom is a big thing, it's horrible."
Harouche said that she later went to therapy for PTSD and changed careers.
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