A retired restaurant owner alleged to have been the ringleader of an armed robbery of American reality TV star Kim Kardashian in Paris, has told a court he was in part driven by a taste for easy money.
Aomar Aït Khedache, 68, known as “Old Omar”, has admitted to police that he took part in the robbery in which Kardashian was tied up and held hostage at gunpoint in her Paris hotel bedroom during Paris fashion week in 2016.
But he has denied the prosecution’s accusation that he was the organiser or ringleader of the jewel heist in the early hours of 3 October 2016, which was the biggest robbery of an individual in France in 20 years.
The robbers, dressed as police officers, escaped with up to an estimated $10m (£7.5m) in jewellery, including a 18.88-carat diamond engagement ring given to Kardashian by her then husband, the rapper Kanye West, estimated to be worth $4m.
Aït Khedache is part of a group five men aged over 60 who allegedly went to Kardashian’s Paris hotel by bike or on foot for the hold-up, and who French media have nicknamed “the grandpa robbers”. Like several other accused men, he has serious health problems. He is deaf and cannot speak, so he read the court’s questions on a typed transcript, writing his answers with a pen and paper, projected on to a screen.
The court heard that Aït Khedache, who ran restaurants in France and Spain, had served several prison sentences for robbery from the 1970s.
The lead judge, referring to Aït Khedache’s past convictions, asked him why he turned to crime. He replied that he did not know, saying it was largely due to keeping bad company. Asked by the judge whether he was driven by a taste for easy money, Aït Khedache wrote: “Not particularly, but that too.”
The court heard that at the time of the jewel heist, Aït Khedache was already a wanted man, living under a stolen identity in order to escape prison for a drug-trafficking conviction from 2010.
A total of 10 people, aged from 35 to 78, are on trial over their alleged part in the Kardashian robbery. Eight deny involvement.
One of the accused is Aït Khedache’s eldest son, Harminy, who is alleged to have been a getaway driver. Harminy Aït Khedache, who had previously worked as an Uber driver, has denied involvement in the robbery. He told police he had been asked by his father to collect him one night in Paris, something he often did, and that he knew nothing of the heist.
The court heard that Aomar Aït Khedache was born in Algeria and arrived in France as a young child. He and his nine siblings were “paralysed by fear” of their violent father.
The older Aït Khedache was convicted for robbery for the first time 1977, and while he was in prison for 10 months, his pregnant wife died in a fire. Aït Khedache had a psychiatric breakdown over her death and received electric shock therapy, which he said caused the start of his hearing problems. Later he met a woman with a young baby, Harminy. He married her, adopted Harminy, and had another son, Haris.
Harminy Aït Khedache, in his early 40s, broke down in tears in court on Tuesday. He said he had found out from a relative when he was aged six that Aomar wasn’t his biological father but had been scared of asking his parents for details for fear of upsetting them. He said he considered Aomar his father and had always wanted to please him. He told the judge that, in general: “I wanted to show that I’m devoted to him.”
Haris Aït-Khedache, 39, a bus driver, was called as a character witness for his father. He said of his father’s role in the robbery: “He made a mistake. He found himself in a situation where he didn’t have the choice, I think.” He said his father had said that the victims “must have been traumatised” and that he “regrets the repercussions of this”.
