Kim Kardashian trial live: Star to testify over $10m jewellery heist in Paris today

The queues of journalists eager to secure a coveted spot in the courtroom has been forming since around 6am, when I arrived at the Palais de Justice this morning.

For the last couple of hours there’s been a lot of chatter, and a lot of hushed anticipation but the only real action has been the frequent dashes to the coffee shop across the road.

The entrance for foreign press, I’m told, is also where for the last two days, the defendants have entered the court building.

There are 10 accused in total, mostly elderly men, who, despite the serious crimes they’re accused of – and prolific criminal records – remain at liberty.

It’s true: as the line inches towards security at around 8.45am, one of the defendants, Christiane ‘Cathy’ Glotin, 79, the only woman facing prosecution, casually strolls past.

She’s a small, almost unnoticeable figure today dressed in blue jeans and a matching denim jacket, trainers and a surgical mask, presumably to conceal her identity.

Kim Kardashian will testify in person on Tuesday at the trial of her alleged armed robbers who are accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of her jewellery.

Here’s all you need to know so far:

Speaking openly since the horror episode, Kardashian believes that the Paris robbery made fundamental changes to her personality and her approach to the world.

She fears she is turning into a “full robot with like, no emotion,” she said in an episode of the reality show last year.

“[My therapist] was like, ‘You think calm is your superpower. I think you are so desensitised from trauma that you literally are frozen in fight or flight,’” she said. “So then she was like, ‘One time in life something happened, and you remained calm, and that worked for you. So you will always choose calm.’”

Kim Kardashian, once mocked by some of the French press as a reality TV sideshow, is now at the centre of a case with deep cultural resonance.

The robbery forced her to consider how she lived, posted and protected herself. Her brand had been built on access, her life broadcast to millions. But that strategy had collapsed.

“I learned to be more private,” she later said. “It’s not worth the risk.”

Ms Kardashian enhanced her security detail by hiring people with backgrounds in elite protective services, reportedly including former members of the U.S. Secret Service and CIA. She stopped posting her location in real time. Lavish gifts and jewelry all but vanished from her feed.

“I was definitely materialistic before — but I’m so happy that my kids get this me,” she reflected on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2017.

Later, Kardashian acknowledged that constant sharing had made her a target.

“People were watching,” she said. “They knew what I had. They knew where I was.”

The ring gleamed in Instagram posts. So did the diamond necklace and the luxury Paris address. For Kim Kardashian, sharing online was second nature, an extension of her fame. But in the early hours of Oct. 3, 2016, that openness was turned against her.

Five masked men posing as police officers stormed the residence where she was staying during Fashion Week. They bound her with duct tape and plastic cable ties, locked her in the bathroom and fled with an estimated $6 million in stolen jewelry.

The robbery sent shock waves far beyond Paris. It was the latest moment when celebrity exposure — fueled by social media updates and glamour on display — collided with real-world risk.

In police reports given to the French authorities at around 4:30am on the night of the robbery, Kim Kardashian listed the following items as having been stolen, according to Sky News:

• Two diamond Cartier bracelets
• A gold and diamond Jacob necklace
• Diamond earrings by Lauren Schwartz
• Yanina earrings
• Three gold Jacob necklaces
• Little bracelets, jewels and rings
• A Lauren Schwartz diamond necklace
• A necklace with six little diamonds
• A necklace with Saint spelt out in diamonds
• A cross-shaped diamond-encrusted Jacob cross
• A yellow gold Rolex watch
• Two yellow gold rings
• An iPhone 6 and a BlackBerry

Yunice Abbas, who has admitted his part in the robbery and even wrote a memoir about it, told the court early on during the case of his “regrets”.

The 71-year-old told the court he had never spared a thought for the victims of his lifelong criminal activities, until hearing how Kim Kardashian had been traumatised by the 2016 robbery.

“This time I have regrets,” he told the court according to the BBC. “Before I didn’t… It opened my eyes. We just grabbed the lady’s handbag, but I have discovered there’s trauma behind it.”

Surveillance footage helped French police reconstruct the timeline of the robbery, but the breakthrough came from a trace of DNA left on the plastic ties used to bind Kardashian.

It matched Aomar Aït Khedache, a veteran criminal whose DNA was in the national database. Phone taps and surveillance led police to others, including Yunice Abbas and Didier Dubreucq, known as “Yeux bleus.” Most of the accused have long criminal records.

Abbas later claimed he was unaware of Kardashian’s identity during the heist.

But investigators say the men acted with detailed planning and discipline. Prepaid phones were activated the day before the heist and abandoned immediately afterward. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.