Stylist Simone Harouche has told a court that on the night Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris she was woken by the US star’s screams of terror and feared she had been “raped or violated”.
Wearing a black jacket and bulky gold necklace, Ms Harouche, 45, spoke to Judge David de Pas in the Voltaire room of Paris’s criminal court via an interpreter, describing the robbery that took place in the French capital nearly a decade ago.
Ms Harouche, who says she has worked for Kardashian for many years and has been friends with her since she was 12, told the court she was woken by “a sound I had never heard from Kim… It was terror”.
Sleeping in a separate apartment, on the next floor down from Kardashian’s, she went on: “What I heard specifically was [Kim saying], ‘I have babies and I need to live – that is what she kept saying… Take everything. I need to live'”.
She told the judge: “When I realised something terrible was going on upstairs and I realised it was not friends [in Kim’s room] I started looking for my telephone and I started looking for something to help save mine and Kim’s life.”
She went on to lock herself in her bathroom and hide in her shower, where she called Kardashian’s sister Kourtney and texted her security guard, Pascal Duvier, telling them, “Something is very wrong… Kim is upstairs with men and we need help.”
She says minutes later, Kardashian “hopped” into her room, explaining: “To see my friend with her feet taped and a very light robe with nothing under, and all messed up and pulled, I thought she could have been raped or very violated.”
She said she removed the tape from Kardashian’s feet, and that her friend was “beside herself,” adding, “I’ve never seen her like that before. She was screaming, ‘We need to get out, what do we do if they come back? We need to jump from the first floor, we need to get out.'”
Describing Kardashian as “not in her body”, she said she thinks the star “was still in trauma” while they waited for help after the robbery, and went on to describe the scene following the incident as “very chaotic”.
Simone Harouche pictured last year. Pic: Virisa Yong/BFA.com/Shutterstock
‘Just because a woman wears jewellery, doesn’t make her a target’
A little later, when asked by the judge whether she or Kardashian had believed at the time that wearing and sharing images of such expensive jewellery would be a risk, Ms Harouche says: “Just because a woman wears jewellery doesn’t make her a target. That’s like saying because a woman wears a short skirt she deserves to be raped”.
She goes on to say: “I think that that moment changed [Kardashian’s] life forever… “In terms of security, she doesn’t go alone to places anymore. To lose your sense of freedom is big, it’s horrible.”
Following the robbery, Ms Harouche says she quit her job as a stylist as the experience “made me fearful of all the things that could happen to celebrities, and being around them”.
Asked about what she expects to come of the trial, she tells the judge, “I just want justice to be served,” adding that she’s hopeful it will “bring closure”.
Asking for ‘forgiveness’
At the end of her time in the witness stand, the judge attempted to play a video message from one of the defendants, Yunice Abbas.
Mr Abbas, who has admitted his part in the heist, published a book in 2021, titled “I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian”. A court has since ruled he will not benefit financially from it.
A tech issue meant the message wouldn’t play, so instead the judge read out the statement from Mr Abbas, asking for “forgiveness” for his actions. When asked by the judge if she had a reaction to the apology, Ms Harouche answered, “No”.
Later on Tuesday, Kardashian herself will face 10 defendants who it is alleged pulled off one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French history in the early hours of 3 October 2016.
The trial is now entering its third week.
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Matteo Prandoni/BFA/Shutterstock
Read more: Everything you need to know about the Paris trial
In the French capital for Paris Fashion Week, Kardashian has previously said she was home alone in the early hours of 3 October, while her sister Kourtney and entourage – including her security guard – went out clubbing.
It’s alleged that five masked men posing as police officers stormed the residence, with two entering Kardashian’s room and robbing her at gunpoint.
She says she was then bound and gagged with tape and cable ties and left in the bathtub.
Police say the men escaped on bicycles, with around $9m of jewellery, including a $4m engagement ring from Kardashian’s then-husband Kanye West.
Most of the jewellery was never recovered.
Ahead of her in-person appearance, Kardashian’s lawyers said she was ready to “confront” her Paris attackers and intended to do so “with dignity and courage”.
The trial, which is being held in front of three judges and six jury members, is due to conclude at the end of this week.
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