Kim Kardashian leaves the justice palace after testifying, relating to a theft of tens of millions of {dollars} in jewels from her Paris resort room in 2016, in Paris, Tuesday, Could 13, 2025.
Aurelien Morissard/AP
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Aurelien Morissard/AP
PARIS — The veteran gangster who held Kim Kardashian at gunpoint and left her fearing for her life provided “a thousand pardons” in court docket Friday.
Aomar Aït Khedache, 69, pleaded for forgiveness simply earlier than a Paris jury retired to deliberate. Although prosecutors say he masterminded the 2016 theft, Khedache denies planning it—blaming a mysterious determine he known as “X” or “Ben,” whom authorities say does not exist.
He is one in all 10 defendants — on trial at Paris’ Assises court docket, face expenses together with armed theft and kidnapping by an organized gang.
Many of the accused at the moment are of their 60s and 70s and have been dubbed the “Grandpa robbers” by French media.
Alleged mastermind Khedache is now utterly deaf and needed to learn the court docket’s directions on a display screen.
The gang, arrived on foot and by bicycle, disguised as cops, to trick the doorman at Kardashian’s luxurious house throughout Paris Vogue Week in October 2016.
Considered one of them, 71-year-old Yunice Abbas, has already written a ebook concerning the heist. He had beforehand served 20 years for housebreaking.
“I told myself this was the last time,” Abbas mentioned in a TV interview. “But a 20-karat diamond with no protection? That was tempting.” He admitted he did not know who Kardashian was — solely that she was “the wife of a rapper.”
However the ring was well-known: Kardashian had proven it off to her 300 million Instagram followers.
The job was sloppy. Abbas’ getaway bike acquired a flat tire and his bag of jewels ripped open on the street. A $24,000 diamond cross necklace fell right into a gutter and was discovered the subsequent day by a passerby — who wore it for some time earlier than turning it in.
The bungling gang left DNA everywhere in the scene. They used tape and Velcro to restrain Kardashian and have been caught inside 4 months.
“It might sound funny,” mentioned Mohand Ouidja, lawyer for the traumatized doorman, “but this was armed robbery, violence, and bondage. It’s serious — regardless of the robbers’ age.”
Kardashian known as it the worst night time of her life. Her $4 million diamond ring was by no means recovered.
The 2 month trial at a courthouse in Paris’s historic Ile de la Cité space has attracted enormous media consideration. Crowds flocked throughout Kardashian’s transient look in Could, hoping for a glimpse of the celeb. Prosecutors have requested 10-year jail phrases for the 4 males accused of finishing up the theft.
The defendants’ attorneys urged the jury to spare their ageing shoppers from jail, arguing that it might quantity to a life sentence.
Although the incident modified her life, Kardashian says she has forgiven the thieves.
“I believe in second chances,” she advised her 300 plus million Instagram followers.
