A Paris court has found the ringleader and seven other people guilty in the 2016 robbery of Kim Kardashian.
The court acquitted two of the 10 defendants. The sentences being read out by the court president range from prison terms to fines.
The robbery was one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French historyn when masked men stormed the star’s luxury apartment, tied her up at gunpoint and vanished into the dark with $6 million in jewels.
Nine men and a woman were found x of carrying out or aiding the crime during Paris Fashion Week in 2016, when the robbers, dressed as police, forced their way into the glamorous Hôtel de Pourtalès, bound her with zip ties and escaped with her jewelry – a theft that would force celebrities to rethink how they live and protect themselves.
Among the accused was 69-year-old Aomar Aït Khedache, the alleged ringleader, who arrived at court walking with a stick, his face hidden from cameras. Prosecutors have asked for a 10-year sentence. His DNA, found on the bands used to bind Kardashian, was a key breakthrough that helped crack open the case. Wiretaps captured him giving orders, recruiting accomplices and arranging to sell the diamonds in Belgium. A diamond-encrusted cross, dropped during the escape, was the only piece of jewelry ever recovered.
The trial has 'reignited a debate in society about the toll of being famous'
Khedache says he was only a foot soldier. He blamed a mysterious “X” or “Ben” – someone prosecutors say never existed.
His lawyer pleaded for clemency, pointing to one of the trial’s most visceral moments – Kardashian’s earlier courtroom encounter with the man accused of orchestrating her ordeal. Though she wasn't present Friday, her words, and the memory of that moment, still echoed.
“She looked at him when she came, she listened to the letter he had written to her, and then she forgave him,” lawyer Franck Berton told The Associated Press.
Kardashian, typically shielded by security and spectacle, had locked eyes with Khedache as the letter was read aloud.
“I do appreciate the letter, I forgive you,” she said. “But it doesn’t change the feelings and the trauma and the fact that my life was forever changed.”
Khedache on Friday asked for “a thousand pardons”, communicated via a written note in court. Other defendants also used their final words to express remorse.
The accused became known in France as “les papys braqueurs” – the grandpa robbers. Some arrived in court in orthopedic shoes and one leaned on a cane. Some read the proceedings from a screen, hard of hearing and nearly mute. But prosecutors warned observers not to be seduced by soft appearances.
The trial was heard by a panel of three judges and six jurors, who needed a majority vote to reach a decision.
