It’s been nearly a decade since Kim Kardashian was bound and had a gun held to her head in her hotel room during the 2016 Paris Fashion Week. This week, the reality TV entertainer and businessperson faced her alleged attackers for the first time while giving evidence in the long-anticipated case.
On Tuesday, Kardashian gave a testimony lasting more than three hours in a packed Paris courtroom, sharing her account of the armed burglary for the first time, and telling judges she thought she was going to die at the hands of masked gunmen.
In the early hours of 2 October, 2016, two masked gunmen wearing police uniforms broke into her Paris luxury hotel suite and stole millions of dollars of jewellery from her, including a diamond engagement ring from her ex-husband Kanye West.
Nine men and one woman are on trial for the armed theft of £7.55m ($AUD15m) worth of jewellery. During her testimony, Kardashian was interrupted by apologies from two defendants, including 71-year old Aomar Ait Khedache, who’d expressed his regret.
Kardashian addressed Khedache directly, thanking him for his apology letter and saying; “I do appreciate it, I forgive you.” She added, “But it doesn’t change the emotion, the feelings and the trauma and the way my life has changed.”
“I just want to thank everyone, especially the French authorities, for allowing me to testify today and tell my truth.”
Kardashian she did not acknowledge the presence of the other defendants, including her former driver Gary Madar, who is suspected of tipping off information about Kardashian’s whereabouts to the burglary ring. Madar has denied the charges.
The ordeal
During her testimony, Kardashian recounted the harrowing events on the night in October, almost nine years ago.
“I didn’t understand what was happening. I was just about to fall asleep. I was naked with a robe on and I pulled it,” she said. “[The men] picked me up off the bed and grabbed me and took me down the hallway to look for more jewellery.”
“A lot of terrorist attacks had happened in the world … I thought it was some kind of terrorist attack. I didn’t quite get at first that it was about my jewellery.”
One of the masked gunmen held a gun to her back. “That was the first moment I thought, should I run for it? But it wasn’t an option so I just stayed,” Kardashian said, adding that she decided she would simply “do whatever they say” for her safety.
She told the court that at one point, she was afraid that she would be raped. The men then tied her legs together and pointed a gun at her. “I was sure that’s when they were going to shoot me,” Kardashian said.
When the judge David de Pas asked her on the stand if she thought she was going to die, she replied: ”I absolutely did think I was gonna die.”
The robbers took the jewellery and left Kardashian in the bathroom, where she managed to free herself from the cable ties and seek help from her stylist and friend Simone Harouche on another floor.
Reflecting on how the crime changed her sense of safety, Kardashian said “everything changed” after Paris, and that she began to get a “phobia of going out” because she believed people would “see me out and know my home was empty”.
“I can’t even sleep at night if I know there’s not multiple security”, she told the court. “We never felt that we were unsafe before this. This experience changed everything.” She expressed her desire to find closure from the trial’s proceedings.
“I wanted to be a part of today because I am a victim in this case and it’s the first time I’m able to really hear from everyone and follow along,” she said.
“This is what I do. I want to become a lawyer and I do believe everyone has the opportunity to speak their truth, and this is my closure and my opportunity to put this to rest after everything I’ve been through.”
“[I want] to tell my truth and hope this doesn’t happen to anyone else. It was terrifying and life-changing and I don’t wish that kind of terror on anyone – to think you could be killed or raped – I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”
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