One of the suspects in the armed robbery of reality TV star Kim Kardashian said he regrets the “trauma” he caused her nearly nine years after Kardashian was bound, gagged and robbed at gunpoint during Paris Fashion Week in October 2016.
The robbery was considered the biggest heist targeting an individual that Paris had seen in decades. The jury of six citizens will conduct the trial, along with three magistrates — a procedure in France reserved for the most serious crimes.
Defendant Yunice Abbas said this was the first time he truly recognized the “trauma” he caused Kardashian, as the trial began Tuesday in the proceedings against 10 people charged in connection with the 2016 robbery, where more than US$10 million worth of jewelry was stolen.
“I regret it, not because I got caught, but because … there was a trauma,” Abbas, 72, told the jury.
Defendant Yunice Abbas arrives for the start of the trial for the 2016 robbery and kidnapping of U.S. celebrity Kim Kardashian at the Assize Court of Paris, on April 28, 2025.
MAGALI COHEN/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
Abbas was the first of several defendants set to testify in the trial and had previously confessed to his role in the crime in his 2021 book, titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian, which came up during the testimony.
He claimed that he was not responsible for the title of the book and he said he was not involved in tying up Kardashian during the robbery, according to NBC News.
Abbas said he acted as a lookout at the reception area on the ground floor, ensuring the escape route was clear. He said he was unarmed and did not personally threaten Kardashian, but acknowledged he shared responsibility for the crime.
He was arrested in January 2017 and spent 21 months in prison before being released under judicial supervision. Abbas and nine others, called the “grandpa robbers” in local media due to their ages, are alleged to have played different roles in the heist.
According to Abbas, minutes after the raid started, his accomplices came down from Kardashian’s apartment and gave him a bag of jewelry.
As he was fleeing the scene on a bicycle, he saw a police car, but officers were not yet aware of the robbery. Abbas said that as he rode the bicycle, the bag containing the jewelry became caught in the front wheel and he fell to the ground, spilling the contents of the bag.
“I picked the jewels up and left,” he said.
The following morning, a passerby found a diamond-encrusted cross in the street and handed it to police. That was the only jewelry from the robbery that was ever recovered.
Abbas claimed he didn’t know Kardashian’s identity at the time of the robbery.
“I was told about a famous person, a rapper’s wife. That’s all the information I had,” he said. “Until the next morning, when I heard on TV about the influencer. That’s when I understood who she was.”
During questioning on Tuesday, Abbas spoke about his criminal past, including an armed robbery of a bank in Belgium. He said that when he was younger, he was opposed to theft but later turned to a life of crime due to the bad influences of friends and money difficulties.
He said he “never had a role model” and had done what he believed he needed to do in order to provide for his children.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
In the years following the robbery, Abbas said he now felt “very uneasy” about what took place that day, adding, “I can’t do anything besides apologize.”
In her account to investigators, Kardashian described two men forcing their way into her bedroom at a private apartment complex in Paris and pointing a gun towards her, asking for her ring. She said she was tied up with plastic cables and tape while the intruders were looking for jewels, including her engagement ring worth millions of dollars.
Twelve people were originally expected in the defendants’ box. One has died and another is seriously ill and can’t be tried. According to the investigation, five of the 10 defendants were present at the scene of the robbery.
Others expected to stand trial include the alleged ringleader, 68-year-old Aomar Aït Khedache; his son Harminy, 37, who is accused of being the getaway driver; Didier Dubreucq, 69, known as “Blue Eyes,” who is the second alleged robber suspected of entering the flat; and Christiane Glotin, 78, who is expected to stand trial as an accomplice in the heist.
This court sketch made on April 28, 2025 shows defendants Aomar Ait Khedache (C, front), Francois Delaporte (R, up), Florus Heroui (2nd R, up) and Christiane Glotin (4th T, up) during the trial for the 2016 robbery and kidnapping of U.S. celebrity Kim Kardashian at the Assize Court of Paris, on April 28, 2025.
BENOIT PEYRUCQ/AFP via Getty Images
The brother of Kardashian’s driver in Paris, Gary Madar, 35, is also expected to stand trial. He is accused of tipping the others off to Kardashian’s location.
Defendant Gary Madar during the trial for the 2016 robbery and kidnapping of U.S. celebrity Kim Kardashian at the Assize Court of Paris, on April 28, 2025.
MAGALI COHEN/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
Kardashian, 44, is expected to testify in person at the trial, scheduled to run through May 23. Her lawyers said she will testify in person and is expected to speak on May 13.
“Ms. Kardashian is reserving her testimony for the court and jury and does not wish to elaborate further at this time,” they said. “She has great respect and admiration for the French justice system and has been treated with great respect by the French authorities.”
In interviews and on her family’s reality TV show, she has described being terrified as robbers pointed a gun at her. She said she thought she was going to be raped and killed.
In March 2017 on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, the mother of four theorized that a group of men were following her family the entire Paris trip and admitted she was Snapchatting that night, letting her followers know that everyone was going out, including her then-bodyguard Pascal Duvier, and that she would be alone.
“What I think happened now after thinking about it so much is that there was probably a group of guys that were following us the entire trip. I was Snapchatting that I was home and everyone was going out.
“They had this window of opportunity and just went for it,” she said.
She explained she was falling asleep in her room when she heard pounding on the stairs. She thought it was her sister Kourtney and her assistant Stephanie. She continued to call out “hello” without getting any response.
“Then at that moment, when there wasn’t an answer, my heart started to get really tense, like your stomach just kind of like knots up, and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’” she said. “I knew something wasn’t quite right.”
She told her sisters what occurred after the armed robbers entered.
“I saw two guys holding another guy down in police uniforms, right outside of my bedroom, five feet away. So I slid off my bed and picked up my phone, and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to call 911 in a different country.’ So I called Pascal and then the guy came in, grabbed the phone from me, and threw me on the bed. I was like, ‘This is it.’”
She says she recognized the concierge, who was handcuffed, holding the key to her room.
“What I heard from talking to [the concierge] afterward, they said, ‘Where’s the rapper’s wife? Let us up to her room,’” she said.
“He grabbed my legs — I had no clothes on under there — and he pulled me towards him at the front of the bed and I thought, ‘OK, this is the moment he’s going to rape me,’” the Skims founder said during her interview.
“I fully mentally prepped myself and he didn’t. He duct taped my legs together and then they had the gun up to me, I knew that was the moment they were totally going to shoot me in the head.”
Kardashian’s lawyer, Michael Rhodes, has said the reality TV star and entrepreneur wants the trial “to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case.”
— With files from The Associated Press
