PARIS, France — Two men have been given prison sentences for their roles in the 2023 violent burglary of Manchester City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and his then fiancée at their Paris home.
Ilyas Kherbouch, 21, described as the mastermind of the raid, was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined €80,000 ($93,000) by the Paris Criminal Court.
Co-defendant Moktar D received a five-year sentence, with two years suspended subject to probation.
A third defendant, Khyan M, whom prosecutors alleged had helped organise the robbery from prison, was acquitted.
Donnarumma, then a Paris Saint-Germain player, and Alessia Elefante were attacked in their ninth-floor apartment on Avenue Montaigne in the early hours of 21 July 2023. Four masked men entered via the rooftops, dragged the couple from bed and held them at knifepoint.
Donnarumma was beaten with knuckle gloves until he bled. Elefante was choked with a phone charging cable. The pair were separated and bound. A seven-man gang — some still unidentified — stole cash, jewellery, watches and luxury bags that Donnarumma later valued at just under €1 million.
Elefante, who was pregnant, later suffered a miscarriage that was blamed on the trauma of the attack. The couple have since married. Donnarumma joined Manchester City in 2025.
Prosecutors had sought sentences of between four and 10 years. The harshest request, 10 years, was for Kherbouch, who last March escaped from Villepinte prison north of Paris.
Moktar D, the only defendant present at the scene, claimed he had acted only as a lookout on a neighbouring rooftop. The two alleged organisers denied involvement despite messages and images recovered from phones used while they were in custody.
A childhood friend of Moktar D, also implicated and accused of acting as an informant, died by suicide in prison.
Prosecutors said the exclusive Avenue Montaigne area had been targeted by a “youthful criminal population”, listing seven celebrity victims between 2022 and 2025, and described the crime as “highly lucrative” and “extremely violent”.
