Kardashian may get relief after heist

Nearly four years after reality star Kim Kardashian was tied up at gunpoint in Paris and robbed of a small fortune in gems, a trial for 12 suspects appeared a step closer yesterday after prosecutors asked for the case to go to court.

On a visit to the French capital for Fashion Week in October 2016, five men stormed Kardashian’s rented luxury residence, held her at gunpoint, gagged her and tied her up in a bathroom.

One of them “asked me with a strong French accent where my ring was. It was on the bedside table. [But] I replied that I didn’t know and then he pulled out a gun and I showed him the ring”, the wife of rapper Kanye West told police at the time.

The near-20-carat Lorraine Schwartz diamond ring was worth about $4 million (about R67 million).

Kardashian said the men tied her up with plastic cables and adhesive tape “and they carried me to my bathroom” where they placed her in the bathtub. The gang also took a box containing two Cartier diamond bracelets, a diamond-studded necklace, a yellow gold Rolex watch and a diamond-encrusted cross.

In the biggest robbery of an individual in France in two decades, the men made off with a combined haul worth about €9 million (about R171 million).

One of the alleged robbers, Yunis Abbas, fleeing the scene on a bicycle, dropped a diamond-encrusted cross worth

€30 000 which was found by a passer-by hours later.

It remains the only piece to be recovered from the heist.

Late Wednesday, a judicial source said prosecutors have asked for a trial to be held in the case, with charges of armed robbery, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy against the five men accused of executing the heist. –