The Japan Times - 'I thought I was going to die,' Kardashian tells in Paris robbery trial

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.

"Hi! I'm Kim Kardashian and I just want to thank everyone, especially the French authorities, for allowing me to testify today and tell my truth," she told the packed court as she began giving evidence, wearing a black suit.

The trial has attracted huge media attention, with close to 500 reporters accredited, and crowds flocking around the courthouse on Paris's historic Ile de la Cite early Tuesday with fans hoping for a glimpse of the celebrity.

"I came to Paris for Fashion Week and Paris is always a place I love so much," Kardashian said as she gave the court her account of the night of October 2-3, 2016, when she was robbed while staying at an exclusive, discreet hotel in central Paris.

She was in her hotel room -- "with my best friend downstairs, my sister and my friend and my mom, they were all out for the night" -- when she heard "stomping" up the stairs and people "who I assumed were police officers because they were in uniform" entered her room.

"Then I heard one of the gentlemen say 'ring' a few times over, 'ring', 'ring' and he pointed his finger with an accent," she said, adding she didn't at first "understand it was for my jewellery".

- 'I said a prayer for my family' -

The man then found what he was looking for, a diamond ring given to Kardashian by her then-husband, rapper Kanye West, and valued at 3.5 million euros ($3.9 million).

The attackers then began to look for more valuables, threatened Kardashian with a gun and tied her up with a zip tie, she said, visibly emotional.

"I was certain that he was going to shoot me so I said a prayer for my family," she said, adding she prayed "that they will have an OK life after seeing what they saw".

She added: "I thought I was going to die."

She also feared that she would be raped but the man with the gun "closed my legs and put a tape on my leg".

In the robbery, dubbed by the French press as the "heist of the century", the masked men walked away with millions of dollars' worth of jewels.

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.

- 'Crying hysterically' -

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.

In it he describes how his bag became caught in the wheel of his escape vehicle, a bicycle, causing him to fall off and have to scramble to shove the loot back in the bag.

Investigators said a man called Gary Madar, the brother of Kardashian's driver in Paris, tipped the suspects off that Kardashian was "in French territory".

This allegation has been ridiculed by Madar's lawyer, who remarked that 350 million online followers were already aware of the star's whereabouts.

The night of the robbery could have gone very differently had Kardashian joined her sister Kourtney and gone clubbing, an idea she entertained before deciding to stay in the hotel, the court heard last week.

Her designated driver, Michael Madar -- whose company was billing the Kardashian/West couple up to 400,000 euros per year to provide security -- had been working non-stop for 21 hours and asked a colleague to replace him for the trip to the night club.

The replacement, Mohammed Q., and a Kardashian bodyguard, Pascal D., rushed back to the hotel after Kardashian tried to call them and then failed to pick up her phone when they called back.

When Pascal D. found her, Kardashian "was in a terrible state. She was crying hysterically", he told the court.

The US celebrity, sometimes described as being "famous for being famous", became well known in the early 2000s through TV reality shows, before launching fashion brands and appearing in a number of films.

She is among the world's most followed people on Instagram and X.

She has been named among the 100 most influential people by Time magazine, and among the most powerful women by Fortune magazine.

The trial is set to end on May 23.

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S.Suzuki--JT