Nightwatchman attacked by Kim Kardashian heist gang sues one of the robbers for the profits of book he has published about the £7.9m raid
- Robber Yunice Abbas, 67, has written a book titled ‘I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian’
- A nightwatchman attacked during the heist is now suing Abbas for his profits
- He is incensed that Abbas is profiting from the crime before he has stood trial
- Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in Paris hotel room in 2016 in £7.9m raid
A nightwatchman attacked in the Kim Kardashian Paris jewellery heist case is suing one of the robbers involved for writing a book about it.
The victim – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was attacked at gunpoint alongside the reality TV star, who ended up bound and gagged.
He is now incensed that Yunice Abbas, 67, is profiting from the crime before he has even stood trial.
Abbas’s new book, which has just gone in sale in Paris at more than £15 a copy, is called ‘I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian’.
The nightwatchman of the luxury serviced apartment block where the raid took place during Paris Fashion Week in October 2016 wants all profits to go to him.
Yunice Abbas, 67, was one the thieves dubbed the ‘grandpa robbers’ who bound Miss Kardashian, 40
Kim Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian pictured in Paris in 2016 before Kim was robbed at gunpoint
The 42-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is particularly angry that career criminal Abbas is currently promoting his work across the media, while portraying his gang as affable old men.
‘Our client considers this publicity campaign indecent,’ reads a statement from the nightwatchman’s lawyers issued to French news agency AFP on Wednesday.
‘He maintains that the individuals who attacked him that evening were not peaceful grandpa robbers, but determined and armed criminals.’
The security guard, who is now a self-financing student at the Sorbonne university in Paris, was ‘neutralised by several people at gunpoint,’ says the statement.
They said a legal procedure has been launched to freeze the book royalties ‘paid to Mr Abbas so he cannot touch them.’
Instead, they want them to be paid to the nightwatchman ‘in compensation for the damage suffered’ during his ordeal.
The gang took jewellery worth £7.9million, including the American mother-of-four’s £3.2million engagement ring
There was no immediate comment from Abbas, or from L’Archipel, the publishers of his book.
Abbas reveals in the book that he had never heard of Kim Kardashian or her rapper husband Kanye West when he joined the robbery gang, and just ‘went along to help get a diamond’.
The gang took jewellery worth £7.9million, including the American mother-of-four’s £3.2million engagement ring, and most of it has never been recovered.
Abbas, who has spent 18 months in prison on remand, is awaiting trial in Paris with 12 others, mostly aged over 60.
He claims his role in the robbery was simply to stand in for the building’s nightwatchman, who was taken up to the room at gunpoint by the other thieves.
‘I was supposed to greet guests if any arrived, but no one arrived,’ said Abbas. ‘Nobody interfered, the victim handed over the jewels without resistance.’
One of the reasons the gang was caught was because Abbas’s DNA was found on a jewel he dropped as they fled.