In October 2016, Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint – with jewelry value hundreds of thousands of {dollars} stolen throughout the audacious heist in Paris.
It was the most important theft of a person in France for greater than 20 years – and made entrance pages world wide.
Now, nearly a decade on, the case is lastly coming to court docket.
Why has it taken so lengthy? Will Kardashian give proof? And who precisely are the “grandpa robbers” dealing with trial?
This is all the pieces that you must know.
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Kardashian on the Siran Presentation on the day of the theft. Pic: Rex Options
What occurred?
Two years after Kardashian and rapper Kanye West tied the knot in an ostentatious week-long celebration spanning Paris and Florence, the Kardashian-West clan have been again within the French capital for Paris Trend Week.
Her then husband had returned to the US to select up his Saint Pablo tour – however Kardashian, alongside along with her sister Kourtney and numerous members of their entourage, remained in Paris, staying in an unique set of residences so discreet they have been dubbed the No Tackle Lodge.
Nestled on Tronchet Avenue, only a stone’s throw from Place de l’Opéra, and near the trendy Avenue Montaigne, the Lodge de Pourtalès is widespread with A-list stars staying within the French capital.
A keep within the Sky Penthouse, the suite occupied by Kardashian, will at present set you again about £13,000 an evening.
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Kardashian was staying on the Lodge de Pourtales
On the night of three October, after attending a vogue present along with her sister, Kardashian remained within the house alone whereas the remainder of her convoy – together with her bodyguard Pascal Duvier – went out for the evening.
At about 2.30am, three armed males carrying ski masks and dressed as police pressured their manner into the house block – and in keeping with investigators, they threatened the concierge at gunpoint.
Two of them are alleged to have pressured the concierge to cause them to Kardashian’s suite. He later informed police they yelled at him: “Where’s the rapper’s wife?”
Kardashian mentioned she had been “dozing” on her mattress when the boys then entered her room.
She has mentioned she believes her social media posts supplied the alleged robbers with “a window of opportunity”.
“I was Snapchatting that I was home, and that everyone was going out,” she mentioned within the months after the incident.
The Retaining Up With The Kardashians star vividly described the assault in a police report, as reported within the French weekly paper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“They grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They tied me up with plastic cables and taped my hands, then they put tape over my mouth and my legs.”
She mentioned they pointed a gun at her, asking particularly for her ring and likewise for cash.
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Police guard the doorway to the Lodge de Pourtalès the day after the theft
Kardashian says they carried her into the toilet and put her within the bathtub. She mentioned she was carrying solely a bathrobe on the time.
She had initially thought the robbers “were terrorists who had come to kidnap me”, in keeping with a French police report taken in New York three months after the theft.
Kardashian informed officers: “I thought I was going to die.”
In keeping with police, the robbers – who left the room after grabbing their haul, escaped on bicycles with objects estimated to be value about $10m (£7.5m), together with a $4m (£3m) 18.88-carat diamond engagement ring from West.
After that they had left, Kardashian mentioned she escaped her restraints and went to search out assist. After talking to detectives, she instantly returned to the US on a personal jet and later employed a very new safety staff.
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Kardashian exhibits off her $4m ring on Instagram
What was stolen?
In addition to her engagement ring, Kardashian mentioned the thieves took her giant Louis Vuitton jewelry field, which she mentioned contained “everything I owned”.
In police reviews given to the French authorities at about 4.30am on the evening of the alleged theft, Kardashian listed this stuff as having been stolen:
• Two diamond Cartier bracelets• A gold and diamond Jacob necklace• Diamond earrings by Lauren Schwartz• Yanina earrings• Three gold Jacob necklaces• Little bracelets, jewels and rings• A Lauren Schwartz diamond necklace• A necklace with six little diamonds• A necklace with Saint spelt out in diamonds• A cross-shaped diamond-encrusted Jacob cross• A yellow gold Rolex watch• Two yellow gold rings• An iPhone 6 and a BlackBerry
Police recovered solely the diamond-encrusted cross that was dropped by the robbers whereas leaving.
It is possible the gold within the haul was melted down and resold, whereas the diamond engagement ring that’s now so related to the theft could be far too recognisable to promote on the open market.
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Kardashian on the Siran Presentation on the day of the theft. Pic: Rex Options
What’s going to occur in court docket?
The listening to will start on the Court docket of Attraction of Paris – the most important appeals court docket in France – on 28 April and is scheduled to final a month.
It would encompass a presiding choose, two skilled assessors, and 6 important jurors.
The listening to includes greater than 2,000 paperwork and there are 4 civil events.
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Kardashian on the Balenciaga present on the day of the theft. Pic: Rex Options
Who’s being tried?
There have been initially 12 defendants within the case, however one particular person has died and one other has a medical situation that forestalls their involvement. This implies 10 folks – 9 males and one girl – are standing trial.
5 of them, who have been all aged between 60 and 72 on the time of the incident, face armed theft and kidnapping prices. They’re:
• Yunice Abbas• Aomar Ait Khedache• Harminv Ait Khedache• Didier Dubreucq• Marc-Alexandre Boyer
Abbas, 72, has admitted his participation within the theft. In 2021, he revealed a e book concerning the theft, titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian. In 2021, a court docket dominated he wouldn’t profit financially from the e book.
Aomar Ait Khedache, 69, identified to French crime reporters as “Old Omar”, has additionally admitted collaborating within the heist however denies the prosecution’s accusation that he was the ringleader.
The remaining 5 defendants are charged with complicity within the heist or the unauthorised possession of a weapon. They’re:
• Florus Heroui• Gary Mader• Christiane Glotin• François Delaporte• Marc Boyer
Amongst these, Mader was a VIP greeter who labored for the automobile firm Kardashian utilized in Paris, and Heroui was a bar supervisor who allegedly handed on details about Kardashian’s actions.
With lots of the accused now ageing and with numerous critical well being situations, and a few having frolicked in jail following their arrest, all are at present free underneath judicial supervision.
If discovered responsible, these accused of the extra critical crimes might face 10 years to life imprisonment.
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Kardashian on the Off-White present three days earlier than the theft. Pic: Rex Options
Will Kardashian give proof?
Sure.
Lawyer Michael Rhodes mentioned Kardashian has “tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system” and “wishes for the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case”.
A trainee lawyer herself, Kardashian has develop into a high-profile legal justice advocate within the US in recent times.
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(R-L) Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner within the entrance row three days earlier than the theft. Pic: Rex Options
Why has it taken so lengthy to come back to court docket?
There was initially a manhunt after the theft, with French police underneath strain to show that Paris’s safety was not in query.
Simply the 12 months earlier than in 2015, the capital had been shaken by terrorist assaults by Islamic militants, during which 130 folks have been killed, together with 90 at a music occasion on the Bataclan theatre.
French police initially arrested 17 folks within the Kardashian case in January 2017 – three months after the theft – assisted by DNA traces discovered on plastic bands used to tie her wrists. Twelve folks have been later charged.
It was ordered to be despatched to trial in 2021 – at a time when restricted court docket proceedings have been taking place as a result of a number of COVID lockdowns, and France was holding its largest ever legal trial over the November 2015 terror assaults.
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Kardashian on the Givenchy present on the day of the theft. Pic: Rex Options
What has Kardashian mentioned concerning the incident?
Kardashian has described the theft as a “life-changing” second. She took three weeks away from filming her actuality TV present Retaining Up With the Kardashians, and took a three-month break from social media.
In a March 2017 episode of titled Paris, Kardashian first spoke publicly about her ordeal.
She described first listening to a noise in her house, and calling out, considering it was her sister and assistant: “At that moment when there wasn’t an answer, my heart started to get really tense. Like, you know, your stomach just kind of like, knots up and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ I knew something wasn’t quite right.”
She went on: “They asked for money. I said, ‘I don’t have any money’. They dragged me out to the hallway on top of the stairs. That’s when I saw the gun, clear as day. I was looking at the gun, looking down back at the stairs. I was like, I have a split second in my mind to make this quick decision.
“Both they will shoot me within the again or if I make it [down the stairs] and the elevator doesn’t open in time or the steps are locked, there is no manner out.”
Three months later, she told a Forbes Power Women’s Summit she had changed her approach to posting on social media: “They’d adopted my strikes on social media, they usually knew my each transfer and what I had.”
She added: “It was positively an enormous, large, large lesson for me to not showcase a few of the issues that I’ve. It was an enormous lesson to me to not showcase the place I am going.
“It’s just changed my whole life, but I think for the better.”
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West and Kardashian on the Off-White present three days earlier than the theft. Pic: Rex Options
In October 2020, Kardashian informed US interviewer David Letterman she feared she could be raped and murdered throughout the heist, and that her sister had been on the forefront of her thoughts throughout the incident.
Talking on My Subsequent Visitor Wants No Introduction, Kardashian mentioned: “I kept on thinking about Kourtney, I kept on thinking she’s going to come home and I’m going to be dead in the room and she’s going to be traumatised for the rest of her life if she sees me… I thought that was my fate.”
When talking to French police concerning the affect the theft had had on her three months after it, Kardashian mentioned: “I think that my perception of jewellery now is that I am not as attached to it as I used to be. I don’t have the same feeling about it. In fact, I even think that it has become a bit of a burden to have the responsibility of such expensive jewels.
“There’s nothing of sentimental worth to check with the act of going house and discovering one’s kids and one’s household.”
She went on to explain Paris as “not the right place” for her, and did not return to the French capital for 2 years following the theft.
Kardashian has since mentioned in a 2023 episode of Retaining Up With The Kardashians that she didn’t buy any jewelry within the seven years following the theft, stored no jewelry at her house and solely wore objects which might be both borrowed or faux.
She mentioned the realisation that materials objects do not matter has made her “a completely different person in the best way”.
