Image source, AFP

The lawyer of defendant Gary Madar is up - he was a driver for the Kardashians when they were in Paris and has strenuously denied being the "insider" that tipped off the alleged burglars to her movements.

So the questions he is asking Harouche are meant to highlight how Kim Kardashian would publicise her movements anyway.

"Madame Kardashian herself - especially on her TV show Keeping up with the Kardashians - later said that she put up a Snapchat story saying she was home alone and everyone else had gone out to the club," the lawyer says.

Image source, Getty Images

We're still hearing testimony from former celebrity stylist Simone Harouche. She has been giving her witness statement to a Parisian court this morning.

She's often appeared emotional as she has recounted her story.

We've also learned that Harouche changed careers following the robbery, left too scarred from the incident and feeling unsafe.

She is now a designer, walking away from a successful and high-profile career styling a variety of celebrities. One of her most famous looks is Kim Kardashian's gold Versace gown from the 2018 Met Gala.

This appears to be the first time that she has spoken publicly about the robbery.

Her social media feeds have moved away from snaps with celebs. Instead, she shares pictures of her children, interiors she has designed and her husband.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

The prosecutor thanks Harouche for "chilling" testimony that allowed the court and the jury to hear her version.

"My first question is on security. Before this event had you ever been afraid for your safety when you shared a duplex with the Kardashian sisters or when you came to Paris for Fashion Week?"

"No," Harouche says.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Harouche says she went to therapy for PTSD and remains very vulnerable to loud noises.

"Being woken up to loud violent noises is not normal and now sounds can trigger me," she tells the court.

Kardashian also went to therapy after this, she explains, and the incident led to loss of freedom and being more more guarded in everything she does.

"I can't even go to her house anymore without being announced and having to go through security," she says.

"I think this is giving closure" she says when asked whether today might bring "calm" back to Kardashian's life.

She takes a big breath and fans herself, hands crossed on the stand.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Kardashian's lawyer Léonor Hennerick now asks how her flight back was after the event.

She says she thinks she "had endured a lot of trauma from hearing what was happening and so I just wanted to get home to my family and when I got on the plane I started crying and I cried pretty much all the way home."

She fights back tears as she recounts the journey: "I remember crying next to a stranger and thinking this poor woman must think I'm crazy."

She says she has since changed profession to design because that experience changed things and made her realise that working with celebrities can be dangerous.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Harouche says she's also spoken about what happened with Kardashian since.

"I think that moment changed her life forever. I think it changed both of us but I think particularly for her, her loss of freedom - she now has a completely different lifestyle.

She notes that in terms of security, Kardashian now "can't go alone".

"To lose your sense of freedom is a big thing, it's horrible."

Presiding judge David De Pas asks her what she awaits from the trial. "I just want justice to be served," Harouche says.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

The judge asks Simone Harouche whether the fact Kardashian was sharing so much on social media could have been dangerous.

"No, because the fact a woman wears jewels shouldn't make her a target. It's like saying that because a woman wears a short skirt she deserves to be raped," Harouche says.

Days before the burglary, Kardashian had shared pictures of a large diamond engagement ring on her social media. She has since said that the robbers asked her for "the ring, the ring".

Harouche adds that she works with many celebrity clients, none of whom feel they can't wear jewellery for fear of being burgled. "I think that's part of the business of entertaining," she says.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Harouche is now being asked more detailed questions by the presiding judge, who is asking her to go through her motions on a floor plan.

The questions are becoming more technical as she walks them through that night.

Harouche is questioned about how many minutes it took for Pascal Duvier, Kardashian's bodyguard, to arrive on the scene.

She is also asked about why the bodyguard wasn't there.

She says it's because his job was to look after the family and so that evening he was at the club with Kardashian's sister.

"At the time it was very normal - not just Kardashian but many celebrities. She was very free at the time and we never thought that she could be threatened in the hotel room."

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Kardashian, after appearing at Harouche's room, was screaming and kept saying: "We need to get out of here we need help. What are we going to do if they come back? We might need to jump out of the first floor window".

She was wondering how they would survive, the court hears.

A few minutes later, Kardashian's bodyguard Pascal Duvier, who escorted her sister to the club, arrived.

"It was like Kim was not in her body, she was in so much shock and I was still so very afraid because I didn't understand what had happened and didn't know who the men were and whether they were coming back."

With this her statement ends.

Harouche says she was confused about why she wasn't approached by police right away and offered to give them a witness statement.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

After hiding in the shower, Harouche says she texted Kardashian's sister and said "something is very wrong. Kim is upstairs with men and she is screaming and we need help."

A few minutes later she heard footsteps coming down the stairs and thought the men were coming for her next.

"I was very afraid for what was happening to my friend upstairs," she says.

"I had no idea... and I was scared that she was raped or violated and I thought the worst."

With a sigh she says it felt like it lasted a long time until the noises stopped.

Then she heard Kardashian call her name and she saw her hop down the stairs and come into her room. She had tape around her mouth.

"To see my friend with her feet taped and with a very light robe with nothing under all messed up - I obviously thought that she could've been raped or very... violated," Harouche says.

This is clearly emotionally difficult for her to recall and she stares at the stand as she speaks.

"She was beside herself. I've never seen her like this before."

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

We are hearing more now from stylist Simone Harouche, who was in the room below Kardashian and awoken by the burglary.

"What I heard specifically was: I have babies and I need to live. This is what I heard her say," Harouche is telling the court.

She realised "something terrible" was going on upstairs and looked for her phone - she says she was scared for her life and for Kardashian's.

Harouche says she moved closer to her bedroom door to hear better and heard rumbling, men screaming and Kardashian screaming with terror.

"This is happening to her and I'm gonna be next and how do we get help," she says, adding she had her phone in her hand and went into the bathroom and hid in the shower.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Harouche speaks slowly to allow the interpreter to follow along, and stops every couple of sentences to give him time to translate.

She says that she and Kardashian had gone to the Givenchy show in the evening and that she was going to pack up the clothes from the week.

"I was very tired so I wasn't going to go out for the rest of the evening," she says.

"Kim said she was going to possibly have dinner with a few friends, I was packing and around 23:30 I went to my room."

She says she fells asleep to the sound of chatter but later woke up to a very different sound.

"I should say before I go further that not only have I worked for Kim, I've also been friends with her for a long time," she adds.

"So this is to say I know her very well, I know her sounds, mannerisms - I know when she's laughing, happy, or when she's more serious," she says.

"We've been friends since we were little girls. So when I heard the sound it was very different and it woke me up - it was a sound I'd never heard from Kim," she says, her voice breaking slightly. "It was terror."

Image source, Getty Images

As Kim Kardashian was being robbed in October 2016, on the floor below in the same suite slept her stylist Simone Harouche.

She hid when she realised burglars had broken in.

She will also be giving evidence today.

Harouche is a childhood friend of Kardashian. The pair went to school together and often appeared alongside one another in social media photos in the years in the lead up to the robbery.

She is in the employ of many celebrities, such as singers Christina Aguilera and Miley Cyrus.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Simone Harouche is here - she was the stylist of Kim Kardashian in October 2016 and was in the suite during the heist.

She has a short blond bob and wears a black top.

Through an interpreter, she is introducing herself to the court as a "fashion stylist from LA" and thanks the court for allowing her to be here to share her testimony.

Judge De Pas says she was questioned a few hours after the events took place, and asks her to share her memories of the night of the heist.

Harouche says at the time she had been hired by Kardashian to come to Paris as a fashion stylist and to dress her for the many events she was attending that week.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

A bell rings and the presiding judge David De Pas enters the courtroom.

Everyone stands, and the hearing is about to begin.

Image source, AFP

This mammoth case has taken nearly nine years to make it to court.

Initially, 12 men had been charged, but now just 10 are on trial. All but two deny any involvement in the burglary.

That’s because one has died, and the other been excused due to advanced dementia. The defendants include:

• Yunice Abbas, 71, who has already admitted to his role in the robbery, told the court he "regrets" the $10m heist
• Gary Madar, 35, who has been accused of feeding information on Kardashian’s movements to the gang, denies being involved with the heist
• The man who is accused of obtaining the gun used in the heist, Marc Boyer, 78, and his son Marc-Alexandre
• Aomar Ait Khedache, 68 and also known as Omar the Old, who is the other man alongside Abbas who has admitted to having taken part in the heist. Because he is mute, he will be answering questions by writing his answers down on a piece of paper
• Didier Dubreucq, 69, one of the alleged robbers who denies any involvement in the case

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

I am in the Salle Voltaire, one of the courtrooms in the main Paris courthouse.

No photos or recordings are allowed in here, but it's a grand and very impressive room, with a large tapestry adorning the wall over the defendants' glass box and wooden pews for the public and the media.

Several defendants are here - Yunice Abbas, Aomar Ait Khedache, Gary Madar and others.

Léonor Hennerick, one of Kim Kardashian's lawyers, is also here, although her client is not expected until the afternoon.

Kim Kardashian is on the move - and we're guessing she's en route to Paris.

Last night the star shared a picture to her Instagram story showing an aerial view from a plane window showing houses and the countryside.

She's due in court this afternoon.

Image source, Getty Images

Kim Kardashian has spoken several times about the armed robbery since it happened in 2016. She first addressed it on her family’s reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, a year after it happened.

"I heard pounding up the stairs,” she tells her sisters in the episode, and then described looking outside her door.

“I saw two guys holding another guy down in police uniforms right outside of my bedroom.”

At the time, her bodyguard was at a club with Kim’s sisters Kendall Jenner and Kourtney Kardashian. The men used a receptionist to gain entry to the star’s room.

A man came in and threw her on the bed, she explained.

In a later interview with US chat show host David Letterman, she said the men kept shouting at her asking for jewellery. She handed it to them and was then pulled towards one of the men.

Since the ordeal, she has spoken several times about being scared to be alone.

The trial kicked off in late April, so there’s plenty to catch up on. Here are the top lines:

• The heist was full of blunders. One of the accused, Yunice Abbas, was caught on CCTV cycling away from the scene, falling and dropping a bag of the jewellery. He scrambled to pick it all up, but left a necklace behind, which was found and reported to police

• That necklace is the only stolen item ever found
• The court heard that another defendant, Aomar Ait Khedache, was tracked down after he left DNA on duct tape used to tie up Kardashian
• Abbas, who released a memoir in 2021, told the court he regrets the crime
• The Madar family worked with the Kardashians for several years. When Gary Madar was arrested in 2017, Kim Kardashian suggested he might have been the one feeding information about her to the gang

Image source, Reuters