PARIS – A-list celebrity Kim Kardashian is to testify in a Paris court today (Tuesday), an eagerly awaited appearance nearly a decade after being robbed of millions of dollars of jewellery during the French capital’s fashion week. Ten suspects have been on trial since late April over the armed robbery in 2016, which saw jewellery worth some $10 million stolen from the reality TV star and influencer. The trial has attracted huge media attention, with close to 500 reporters accredited. Kardashian is ready to “confront” her Paris attackers, her lawyers said last week. “She is committed to attending in person,” French lawyers Leonor Hennerick and Jonathan Mattout told News Wire Service last week, saying she would do so “with dignity and courage”. She is due to take the stand at 2:00 pm (1200 GMT). On the night of October 2-3, 2016, Kardashian, then 35, was robbed while staying at an exclusive, discreet hotel in central Paris. She was threatened with a gun to the head and tied up with her mouth taped. Lawyers have not divulged what exactly Kardashian, who has been keeping abreast of developments at the trial, will say in her court appearance. During what the French press has dubbed the “heist of the century”, masked men walked away with millions of dollars’ worth of jewels. That included a diamond ring given to Kardashian by her then-husband, rapper Kanye West, and valued at 3.5 million euros ($3.9 million). The theft was the most valuable to target a private individual in France in 20 years. Those on trial are mainly men in their 60s and 70s with previous criminal records.
They have underworld nicknames like “Old Omar” and “Blue Eyes” that resemble those of old-school French bandits of 1960s and 1970s films noirs. “They’re quite a team,” said investigator Michel Malecot. “But they made some mistakes”, he said, notably by leaving DNA that allowed investigators to identify them. Sixty-eight-year-old Aomar Ait Khedache, known as “Old Omar”, has admitted to tying up Kardashian but denies being the mastermind behind the robbery.
Another suspect in the dock, 71-year-old Yunice Abbas, later wrote a book about the heist.
