DRESSED in a bathrobe and with a gun pointed at her head, Kim Kardashian pleaded: “Don’t kill me, I have babies” as a gang of armed robbers ransacked her penthouse for jewels.
When reports of the incredible Paris heist emerged in 2016, cynics branded it a publicity stunt.
But nine years on from the $10.6million [£8m] raid, the billionaire businesswoman and reality TV star is about to relive in court how she was bound, gagged and locked in a bathroom during the terrifying ordeal.
On Monday, ten people accused of “armed robbery in an organised gang”, “kidnap” and “criminal conspiracy” will stand trial at Paris Assizes, two miles from the scene of the crime.
As a key witness, Kim, 44, is reportedly willing to face her alleged attackers for the first time since the terrifying raid at the Hotel de Pourtales.
The star of Disney+ show The Kardashians has waited years for justice as the case dragged on, with timetabling problems caused by high-profile terrorist trials sparking backlogs in the courts.
There were also fears that the publicity any trial involving a Kardashian would attract might destroy the upmarket Paris tourism industry amid events such as last summer’s Olympics.
The delays were so long, one of the elderly defendants in the so-called “grandpa gang” facing charges died before he could be tried.
‘They liked her bling’
Now, ahead of the most high-profile jewellery heist case of the past decade, French detectives have revealed to The Sun how they tracked down the accused.
One of the aging crew has already publicly confessed to robbing Kim, who, in 2016, was still married to rapper Kanye West.
This week, Yunice Abbas, 72, revealed that he didn’t know who Kim was until after the raid.
He claimed: “My mate Aomar Ait Khedache, who put me on the job, had simply told me the victim was the wife of a famous rapper.”
Ait Khedache, known as “Old Omar”, 68, has also admitted participating in the heist but denies the prosecution’s accusation that he was the ringleader.
The police dossier shows how a combination of DNA and CCTV analysis, phone taps and geolocation, plus dogged determination by detectives, including physical tailing of suspects, led to the smashing of the gang within two months of the Hollywood-style heist.
The saga began in the summer of 2016, when Ait Khedache got a tip that a “big American star was coming to town” and that she was showing off her fabulous wealth on Instagram.
This was a time when old- school criminals were abandoning traditional heists for so-called saucissons — “sausage raids”, which involve following rich people into their homes, “wrapping them up like sausages” and then forcing them at gunpoint to say where they kept their valuables, before stealing them.
According to prosecutors, the Kardashian tip came from Florus Heroui, 52, who ran a bar in Le Marais, meaning “The Swamp” in English.
Heroui is said to have obtained precise information about Kim’s movements during Paris Fashion Week from Gary Madar, 34, a VIP greeter who regularly met stars as they arrived at Paris Le Bourget airport by private jet.
“I didn’t know who she was. We had nothing against
Kim Kardashian personally. I do regret that we
scared her
Crucially, Madar was trusted and liked by Kim, and had close family links to the car company she always used when in France.
Old Omar was fleeing justice at the time, having been arrested for his alleged involvement in a drugs racket, and was relying on his mistress, Christiane Glotin, 79, for safe houses to stay in.
In 2016, gang members were “ogling Kim’s jewels after Googling pictures on a computer”, a police investigator claimed.
“None of them had much idea who Kim was,” the source added. “But they liked her very expensive bling.”
All were particularly interested in Kim’s 18.88-carat, $4million [£3m] engagement ring, especially after she proudly announced that she “did not wear fake jewellery”.
Scouting out the star’s Paris address was easy, Omar told detectives. The gang allegedly only had to follow Kim’s Mercedes V-Class people carrier to find out that she was staying in the Hotel de Pourtales.
Better known as the “No Address”, Pourtales is a collection of dream apartments which have welcomed multiple A-listers, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Madonna.
The tip was that Kim would enjoy some “me time” alone in the Sky Penthouse while allowing her staff and family members out on the town.
This is exactly what happened in the early hours of October 3, when, at 2.20am, three cyclists in fluorescent yellow vests approached the No Address and parked their bikes in the courtyard.
Two more arrived on foot, and all were wearing black balaclavas and police armbands before they confronted the property’s only concierge, Abderrahmane Ouatiki.
Pointing an antique Mauser 7.65mm pistol at his head, the gang led Abderrahmane up to the penthouse, where Kim was lying on her bed.
She was alone after her German bodyguard, Pascal Duvier — who she later sacked — went out dancing.
Kim recalled hearing noises outside the door, later telling officers: “I said, ‘Hello!’, but since no one answered, I knew something was wrong.”
Two “aggressive men” in black police uniforms then burst in with the handcuffed Abderrahmane.
“I remember that I had an indescribable
feeling, as if my heart would leave my body, I thought that I was going to die
Kim tried to call 911, the American police emergency number, but of course it did not work in France.
“He puts a gun directly to her head,” Abderrahmane recalled. “She’s crying, she’s screaming.
“She’s saying, ‘Don’t kill me, I have babies, please, I have babies. I’m a mom. Take what you want’. She’s wearing just a robe and her hair is tied back.”
To prevent Kim from screaming too loudly, the robbers taped her mouth shut before locking her in her bathroom.
They spent 49 minutes in the penthouse before leaving with a haul estimated to be worth around $10.6million [£8m].
As they fled, one accidentally dropped a platinum cross adorned with diamonds that was found the next morning.
After cutting through her ties herself, Kim went to another apartment downstairs, where her stylist, Simone Harouche, had barricaded herself in a bathroom.
Incriminating images
Cops were alerted and took statements from Kim before she was allowed to catch her private jet home.
Detectives soon gathered two genetic fingerprints on the Serflex ties used to restrain Kim and Abderrahmane.
The samples corresponded to the prints of Ait Khedache and Abbas, both of whom had their details all over police forensic databases because of their criminal antecedents.
Painstakingly gathering all video recordings in the area, detectives also found plenty of incriminating images.
They included multiple sightings of a Peugeot 508 which was driven by Ait Khedache’s son, Harminy Ait Khedache, 38.
A police telephone specialist went through 7,591 mobile phone calls made in the Madeleine area around the robbery between October 2 and 3, finding numbers linked to the prime suspects.
These included Didier “Blue Eyes” Dubreucq, 69, who was allegedly the second robber to enter the penthouse, along with Old Omar.
Dubreucq had served 23 years in prison for a post office robbery and for importing two tonnes of Colombian cocaine into Europe via a Saudi Arabian prince’s private jet.
Rather than arrest the suspects straight away, officers from the elite Banditry Repression Brigade of the Paris Judicial Police launched tailing operations, which included placing GPS surveillance devices on their cars.
This is when new “faces” appeared, such as Marceau “Rough Nose” Baumgertner — an alleged Paris fence who has since died.
Known as a market trader with a pet dog called Al Capone, the 70-year-old was recorded as having made trips to Antwerp — the diamond capital of Europe — with Old Omar and Glotin to allegedly sell the jewellery.
Old Omar has told police the gold was melted down and resold, while insisting that he has “no idea” where Kim’s ring ended up.
On January 9, 2017, the BRB burst into all the suspects’ homes, handcuffed them and placed them in custody.
Ait Khedache originally denied wrongdoing, but when he heard of the DNA evidence against him, he made a full confession.
Deeply traumatised by the robbery, Kim avoided Paris for more than a year, so investigating judge Armelle Briand had to travel to the US to interview her.
Kim told Judge Briand: “I remember that I had an indescribable feeling, as if my heart would leave my body.
“I thought that I was going to die.”
According to her recorded testimony, Kim added: “This experience opened my eyes to the fact that the world was no longer a safe place.”
She said her “relationship with valuables had changed”, and that “it’s become a burden to be responsible for such expensive items”.
Despite some confessions, and the legal right of police and prosecution to leak information about the case, all officially remain innocent until proven guilty in connection with the largest jewellery theft committed against a single person in France this century.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/14106966/kim-kardashian-face-paris-attackers-trial/
