Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

A diverse cast of characters took the stand today - from seasoned petty criminal Yunice Abbas, the author of "I held up Kim Kardashian," to nervous 35-year-old Gary Madar, who denies any involvement in the heist, to 78-year-old deadpan Marc Boyer, who is accused of supplying the weapon that was used to threaten Kim Kardashian.

We also heard from Didier Dubreucq, who took the stand later than scheduled, and is the second alleged robber accused of entering the apartment.

It offered a real snapshot into the motley crew that police believe was responsible for organising the heist in 2016 - but was also an interesting insight into the ways the aftermath of the burglary - which made headlines around the world - reshaped the lives of the defendants.

Gary Madar, who was arrested in 2017 but never served time in jail - has been living under judicial control for years, meaning he must report to police on a weekly basis and his movements around the country are limited.

He came across as a shy, downtrodden man, bitter about his fate and frustrated at suggestions of involvement in the heist.

Yunice Abbas, on the other hand, said that he never had any thoughts for any of the victims of his lifelong criminal activities until he heard about how much Kim Kardashian had been affected by the burglary.

"This time I have regrets," he told the court. "Before I didn't… It opened my eyes. We just grabbed the lady's handbag, but I have discovered there's trauma behind it."

All the defendants in the trial, except for Abbas and Boyer, deny any wrongdoing.

The second day of the Kim Kardashian armed robbery trial is coming to a close.

We've got a long way to go, with the trial grilling the alleged "grandpa robbers" set to run until the 23 May.

Today there was a series of enquêtes de personnalité - personality reports, which are common in French courts - where we heard:

• Yunice Abbas, who has already admitted to his role in the robbery, told the court he "regrets" the $10m heist
• Gary Madar, who Kardashian suspects handed over information on her movements to the gang, appeared nervous in court, and denies being involved with the heist
• And the man who is accused of obtaining the gun used in the heist, Marc Boyer, displayed guilt over his son also joining a life of crime - his son Marc-Alexandre is also accused of taking part

Tomorrow, the court will hear from Aomar Ait Khedache, the other man alongside Abbas who has admitted to having taken part in the heist.

But for now, for more information on the case, read Laura Gozzi's piece here.

Image source, Reuters

This trial is set to run until 23 May, with Kim Kardashian due to appear in court in Paris on 13 May.

Kardashian's stylist Simone Harouche is also due to testify that same day.

As we reported earlier, the businesswoman and reality star has spoken several times about the robbery since it happened in 2016 - having said she is now scared to be alone.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Today the court has been going through the personal histories of the four defendants that have taken the stand.

This is known as enquêtes de personnalité and is seen as key part of understanding how their lives may have led them to potentially commit the crimes they are accused of.

French courts regularly include this as part of trials held in the country.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

The final defendant we will hear from today is Didier Dubreucq, 69, also known as "Blue Eyes".

He is accused of having taken part in the heist directly - not of being an accessory as is the case for several others - and even of being one of the two men who went into Kim Kardashian's room and held her up at gunpoint.

He denies the accusations.

Dubreucq has spent prolonged periods of his life in jail. On Monday, he was granted permission to be excused from some sessions of the trial to follow a course of chemotherapy.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Image source, EPA

Later this week the court will hear from the other defendants, starting tomorrow with Aomar Ait Khedhache, who is the other man alongside Abbas who has admitted to having taken part in the heist.

We saw him in court yesterday - he is 68, gaunt and wearing glasses and a hearing aid. He stood up with difficulty before being allowed to sit back down.

Because he is mute, he will be answering questions by writing his answers down on a piece of paper.

Other defendants will also take the stand; they all deny involvement in the Kardashian affair.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Image source, EPA

Marc Boyer has been up on the stand for the last half hour.

He is giving fascinating insight into his world which, like other defendants, has been shaped by petty crime and acquaintances which he calls "thieves" and "crooks".

Boyer is suspected of providing the weapon used by the gang in the heist, but investigators think his son Marc-Alexandre has had a more pivotal role in the burglary.

And it is clear he feels guilty about having his son grow up in a setting which led him to make wrong choices in life.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

After a short break, the court returns and we are now going to hear from Marc Boyer.

He is accused of detaining a weapon without authorisation - i.e. the gun that was used in the heist – he denies any wrongdoing.

His son Marc-Alexandre is also one of the defendants and is accused of taking part in the heist.

Court documents show police believe he stayed downstairs in the hotel with Abbas.

Boyer is a sprightly 78-year-old dressed in black, with a southern French accent and reckons he has spent about 17 years in jail in total over the course of his life.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Image source, Getty Images

On the night between 2 and 3 October 2016, Yunice Abbas and four accomplices allegedly staked out Kardashian's suite in Hotel de Pourtalès, Paris.

At around 03:00 local time, they burst into the hotel's entrance hall, dressed as police and wielding a gun. They threatened and handcuffed Abderrahmane Ouatiki, an Algerian PhD student working as a receptionist, and marched him up to Kardashian's room.

She was resting on her bed when she heard stomping up the stairs. She called out for her sister Kourtney and her stylist Stephanie, but when they didn't answer she panicked. Kim dialled 911 but the number, of course, didn't work outside of the US.

As she was calling her then-security guard Pascal Duvier - who had accompanied her sister to a club - the men burst in, pushed her on the bed and started shouting.

They found Kim's engagement ring and stuffed it in a bag along with several other jewels, as well as €1000 in cash.

One of the men grabbed her and pulled her towards him. The man bound her with zip ties and duct tape and left her in the bathroom. Then, he and the rest of the burglars fled on bikes and on foot.

Kim freed herself and shortly after her security guard turned up.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Léonor Hennerick, one of Kim Kardashian's lawyers, is now questioning Madar. She asks him about his relationship with his brother and whether he thought he would become a driver like him, to which he says yes.

When Madar was arrested in 2017, Kim Kardashian suggested she thought he might have been the one feeding information about her to the rest of the gang.

According to the French newspaper, Le Monde, Kardashian told police that the Madar brothers "knew all my movements, we trusted them."

Madar has always denied any involvement in the heist.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

The court president is going through Gary's family history.

The Madar family worked with the Kardashians for several years and even provided transportation for the French leg of Kim and Kanye’s glitzy wedding in 2014.

Gary worked as a sort of customer service agent in airports for his brother Michael's company.

His task was to welcome VIPs arriving at Paris airports, escorting them through passport and customs checks.

But he also worked at a café owned by another defendant, Florus Héroui, 52, who investigators believe Madar passed information on Kardashian to.

During the Paris Fashion Week when the heist took place, Gary was working for Kim ‘s sister Kourtney Kardashian.

He has denied having anything to do with the Kardashian heist.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Image source, EPA

Court has now resumed following a slightly longer than expected lunch break.

We're resuming with Gary Madar this afternoon whose brother Michael's firm had provided transportation and taxis to the Kardashians for years. He is accused of having been an accessory to the heist and of feeding information to the gang about Kim's whereabouts.

Madar was arrested in January 2017. His lawyer Arthur Vercken vehemently pushed back against the accusations, telling the BBC that "since the start the case was built on assumptions, theses, theories - but no proof [of Madar's involvement] was ever found".

Court president David De Pas has started by reading the personality report on Mader.

The 35-year-old apologises at the start of his testimony by saying he is very shy and especially dislikes speaking in public.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

I put this question to Patricia Tourancheau, a crime reporter and the author of a book on the Kardashian heist.

She said the long wait has to do with the defendants’ age and health issues which have meant they spent little time in provisional detention.

Most were only actually in jail for a year. "And so, it was less urgent for judges to bring this to trial," Tourancheau said.

"Other trials going on were also much more urgent- especially the terrorism trials which took up a lot of court time," she added.

"This meant a lot of lawyers were also busy," she said.

For example, defence lawyer Chloe Arnoux, also worked on the trial of the Nice terror attack and wasn't available sooner.

Rachel Flynn
Live reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Businesswoman, actress, campaigner for prison reform and reality TV star - Kim Kardashian has layers.

The 44-year-old is the seventh most followed person on Instagram, and has made headlines since I can remember. Let's look back at her rise, and many eras:

2006: Kim works as a personal stylist to friend Paris Hilton, who she accompanies to Hollywood parties.

2007: A sex tape of Kim is leaked, gaining national attention. Reality TV series Keeping up with the Kardashians begins.

2014: She releases the app Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, playing how to become a Hollywood star and marries rapper Kanye West.

2017: With sisters Kourtney and Khloe, she launches fashion chain Dash and her own beauty and fragrance lines, KKW Beauty and KKW Fragrance. A year later, she begins working to be a lawyer.

2019 - 2020: Kim's shapewear company Skims launches. Her documentaryKim Kardashian West: The Justice Projectairs, where she advocates for criminal justice reform. In 2021, she becomes a billionaire.

2022: She launches Skky Partners, a private equity firm, models at Paris Fashion Week and appears in the twelfth season of American Horror Story.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

While mistakes were made in terms of Kardashian's security, serious errors were made on the burglars' side, too.

"They didn't take into account the progress made by police techniques, which can now find micro traces of DNA anywhere," says Patricia Tourancheau, a crime reporter and the author of "Kim and the Grandpa Robbers" - a thorough account of the heist and of the lives of its perpetrators.

"When they dressed up as police they thought 'that's it, nobody will be able to recognise us'," she adds.

But in 2016 Paris was still reeling from the terrorist attacks of the previous year, and there were a huge number of CCTV cameras all round the city, meaning police were able to spot the thieves and see them make off with the jewels.

Other details of this story suggest that the thieves' planning was rather haphazard. When fleeing the scene on a bike, robber Yunice Abbas fell, dropping a bag of jewels.

The next day, a passer-by found a diamond-encrusted necklace and wore it all day at the office before watching the news and realising where it had come from.

Police arrested Abbas and several other people in January 2017 and later confirmed that they had been under surveillance for several weeks, after DNA traces left at the scene provided a match with Aomar Ait Khedache, also known as "Omar the Old".

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Yesterday was a very procedural session so today has really marked the start of the trial. The morning has been devoted to hearing about- and from - Yunice Abbas, the 71-year-old who has admitted to his role in the 2016 Kim Kardashian heist.

The president of the court delved into his childhood and adult life, including the many crimes he's committed.

The question of the book he wrote about the Kardashian heist has been under particular scrutiny.

Both the court president and lawyers were trying to gauge whether Abbas felt a certain pride for his actions. He denied this, instead saying that the Kardashian case was instrumental in making him think with sympathy about the victims of his crimes for the first time ever.

This afternoon we'll hear the questioning of Didier Dubreucq - one of the alleged robbers who denies any involvement in the case.

We will also hear the background report for Gary Madar, the brother of the driver for the Kardashians’ driver in Paris and who has denied being an accessory to the crime.

Then, another defendant called Marc Boyer will be questioned too.

The court is now breaking for lunch.

Rachel Flynn
Live reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Five years after the robbery, Forbes declared Kim Kardashian a billionaire.

Along with a beauty company, reality show and endorsement deals, Kardashian owns underwear company Skims, valued at $4 billion in 2023.

Her four sisters are businesswomen too, from Khloe's clothing brand Good American to Kourtney's health gummies Lemme.

Their meteoric rise to fame - and wealth - came from reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which began in 2007 and ran until 2021. They then launched a new show called The Kardashians.

Their mum Kris, who was married to OJ Simpson's lawyer Robert Kardashian, is known as the "momager" and is credited for the scale of their success.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

The court’s president has been questioning Abbas, trying to get him to talk about how he views his life of crime and whether he has a sense of pride at having been in and out of jail so often.

"Listening to you though it feels you only feel sorry for yourself. Do you have any sympathy for your victims," asks David Du Pas.

Abbas, who is 71-years-old, responds by saying in this case, he does. “Before I didn't. But this time I do regret what I did… It opened my eyes.”

Abbas is asked why this particular case opened his eyes, to which he replies it was the extensive media coverage of the robbery.

“TVs were talking about it all day and it led me to ask myself some questions," he says.

Referring to the title of Abbas’ memoir, “I Held Up Kim Kardashian,” Du Pas says the title suggest he is proud of what he did.

"No, not at all," Abbas says, shaking his head.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

The president of the court is now questioning Abbas and trying to understand why he has led a life of crime.

"The longer the sentences the more you get used to it," he says, by way of an explanation. He suggests that the more time spent in jail, the less he dreaded the idea of going back in.

Laura Gozzi
Reporting from Palais de Justice court in Paris

Abbas has a slightly frantic manner of speaking but is also defensive. He keeps his arms crossed or clutches the stand as he speaks.

"Yes, my crimes negatively impacted my family,” he says.

“When I was out of jail I did what I could for my children but equally I never had a male role model,” he continues, referencing his own father dying when Abbas was young, “so I didn't know what to do.”