Eight defendants were found guilty of crimes linked to Flight 2016 of the reality TV star Kim Kardashian Almost 10 years after the high -level breaker.
According to at NBC Newstwo of the 10 accused were acquitted for planning and carry out armed robbery During Paris Fashion Week nine years ago.
A court of the French capital decided to the verdict in the trial of the “grandfather thieves” accused of having stolen millions of dollars of Kardashian jewelry.
The flight was considered the greatest robbery targeting an individual that Paris had seen for decades. The jury of six citizens led the trial, as well as three magistrates – a procedure in France reserved for the most serious crimes.
The panel of three judges and six jurors needed a majority vote of seven to make a decision. Kardashian was not present on Friday for the verdict, which was reached shortly after 8 p.m. local time or 2 p.m. he.
Nine men and a woman were accused of having achieved or helped the crime, when the thieves, disguised as a police, made their way in the Glamor Hotel in Pourtalès, linked Kardashian with zipped ties and escaped with $ 6 million of her jewelry.
After having pronounced final statements before the courts, the defendants were dismissed on Friday morning, a verdict finally rendered by the afternoon.
Aomar Aït Khedache, the alleged leader, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, but five of them are suspended.
Three other people accused for the most serious accusations have obtained seven years, including five suspended. With time already purged in pre -trial detention, none of those found guilty will go to prison, according to the Associated Press.
The defendant Aomar Aït Khedache is seen outside the courthouse on April 28, 2025 in Paris, in France.
Images Pierre Suu / Getty
Kardashian published a declaration after the announcement of the decision.
“I am deeply grateful to the French authorities to have pursued justice in this case,” she said. “The crime was the most terrifying experience of my life, leaving a lasting impact on me and my family. Although I will never forget what happened, I believe in the power of growth and responsibility and I pray for healing for all. I remain determined to defend justice, and to promote a fair legal system. ”
Khedache DNA, found on the bands used to link Kardashian, was a key breakthrough that helped open the case. Electronic listening has captured it by giving orders, recruiting accomplices and organizing to sell diamonds in Belgium. A cross inlaid with diamonds, abandoned during the escape, was the only jewel never recovered.
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Khedache said he was just a soldier. He blamed a mysterious “x” or “ben” – someone that prosecutors never say existed.
His lawyer pleaded for leniency, pointing to one of the most visceral moments of the trial – the Kardashian’s previous meeting with the man accused of having orchestrated his orchest.
“She looked at him when she came, she listened to the letter he had written to her, then she forgave him,” said lawyer Franck Berton told the Associated Press.
“I appreciate the letter, I forgive you,” Kardashian told Khedache. “But that does not change feelings and trauma and the fact that my life has changed forever.”
Kardashian testified on May 13 In a crowded Paris courthouse and told the jury that she thought she was going to be sexually assaulted during the 2016 robbery.
“I was sure it was the moment when he was going to rape me,” she told a Paris court on Tuesday. “I absolutely thought I was going to die.”
Kardashian, who was sometimes in tears, said that she was preparing for the bed when she heard noisy steps getting on the stairs to her hotel room, telling the court that at the beginning, she thought it was her sister Kourtney and a friend who came back from a Paris Fashion Week event in the early hours of October 3.
She remembers called to ask who was there before masked men were born in the room.
“I was obviously very confused. I had to understand what was going on. I was about to fall asleep, naked with a dress,” she said in court.
“Honestly, many terrorist attacks happened in the world, and I thought it was a kind of terrorist attack, and I did not immediately understand that it was for my jewelry.”
This court sketch made on May 13, 2025 in Paris shows the American celebrity Kim Kardashian (C), alongside the co-accused Aomar Ait Khedache, testifying before the Assisi court of the 2016 flight trial.
AFP) (Photo by Benoit Peyrucq / AFP via Getty Images
She said that the suspects arrived at her hotel disguised as police and held the concierge hostage. He was dragged in his room, handcuffed, according to Kardashian.
An attacker started to make a gesture towards his diamond ring.
“He said:” Ronnerie! Ring! “And he showed his hand,” she recalls.
Kardashian caught his phone to call the police, but did not know the French emergency number. She then tried to contact her sister and her bodyguard, but was arrested by one of the masked attackers.
The men dragged her to the toilet, she said, where they stuck her mouth and told her that she would not be injured as long as she made no noise.
She remembers having been manipulated aggressively by the suspects, but said that they had not struck her.
“I was not struck. No, I was caught and I dragged into the other room and thrown on the floor, but I was not struck, no,” she said in court.
“(The pistol) was pointed out to me to make me go from room to room, and it was pointed out on the bed at the end.”
His testimony has marked a long -awaited moment in a trial that has captivated France and the broader world for almost a decade, and has rekindled discussions on the price of fame as well as the risks of living in the eyes of the public.
Kardashian was joined by her mother, Kris Jenner, in the strongly guarded Parisian courtroom. Dressed in black with 1.5 million dollars in diamonds draped around his neck – according to a press release sent by his team to journalists during the trial, reports the Associated Press – her voice trembled as she thanked the French authorities for allowing him to “tell my truth”.
The American celebrity Kim Kardashian (L) leaves with his mother Kris Jenner (R) the court of Assisi after having testified during a trial for the flight of 2016 which saw him relieved of millions of dollars of jewelry under the threat of a firearm in Paris, on May 13, 2025.
Leo Vignal / AFP via Getty Images
One of the suspects of armed robbery said that he regretted the “trauma” he caused Kardashian almost nine years later.
Defendant Yunice Abbas said it was the first time that he really recognized the “trauma” that he caused Kardashian, when the trial began on April 29 in the procedure against 10 people charged as part of the 2016 flight.
“I regret it, not because I was caught, but because … there was a trauma,” said Abbas, 72, at the jury.
The defendant Yunice Abbas arrives for the start of the tria for the 2016 flight and the kidnapping of the American celebrity Kim Kardashian at the Paris Assisi Court on April 28, 2025.
Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images
Abbas was the first of several accused who to testify in the trial and had previously confessed his role in crime in his book in 2021, entitled I kidnapped Kim Kardashianwhich appeared during the testimony.
He said he was not responsible for the title of the book and said he was not involved in the Kardashian attachment during the flight, According to NBC News.
Abbas said he had acted as a belvedere at the reception on the ground floor, ensuring that the escape road was clear. He said that he was not armed and that he did not personally threaten Kardashian, but recognized that he was sharing the responsibility of 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 “grandfather” in local media because of their age, would have played different roles in robbery.
According to Abbas, a few minutes after the start of the raid, his accomplices came down from Kardashian’s apartment and gave him a bag of jewelry.
While fleeing the premises on a bike, he saw a police car, but the police were not yet aware of the flight. Abbas said that by bicycle, the bag containing the jewelry was taken in the front wheel and it fell on the ground, overthrowing the contents of the bag.
“I picked up the jewelry and I left,” he said.
The next morning, a passer -by found a cross inlaid with diamonds in the street and gave it to the police. It was the only jewel of the flight that was recovered.
Abbas said he did not know the identity of Kardashian at the time of the flight.
Twelve people were originally expected in the defendant box. One is dead and another is seriously ill and cannot be tried. According to the investigation, five of the 10 accused were present at the scene of the flight
– With files from Global News’ Rachel Goodman and the Associated Press
