French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who committed several murders across Asia in the 1970s and inspired the Netflix series "The Serpent", was finally released from prison on Friday (December 23rd) in Nepal, according to a journalist from the AFP on the spot.
Charles Sobhraj, 78, imprisoned in this Himalayan republic since 2003 for the murder of two North American tourists, is being transferred to immigration services before his deportation to France, police said.
The decision to release him was made by Nepal's Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The serial killer was originally scheduled to be released on Thursday but due to logistical and legal issues, his release was delayed by a day.
Prison officials told AFP that after receiving the court documents, they would hand him over to immigration.
The court ordered that he be deported within 15 days to France.
"Once he has been taken to Immigration, it will be decided what happens next. He has a heart problem, he wants to be treated at Gangalal hospital," said Gopal Shiwakoti Chintan, his lawyer.
The serial killer is in need of open-heart surgery and his release is in accordance with a Nepalese law allowing the release of bedridden prisoners who have already served three-quarters of their sentence, according to the court.
open heart surgery
The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has for its part made it known that it had not yet officially received, from the Nepalese authorities, the request for the expulsion of Charles Sobhraj, but that France would welcome it if necessary.
If such a request were "notified" to him, "France would be required to grant it since Charles Sobhraj is a French national", explained a spokesperson for this ministry.
The French Embassy in Nepal is monitoring the situation, the same source said.
A French citizen of Vietnamese and Indian descent, Charles Sobhraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s and found himself in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
Posing as a dealer in precious stones, he befriended his victims, often Western backpackers on the trail of 1970s hippies, before drugging, robbing and murdering them.
"He despised backpackers, poor young drug addicts. He saw himself as a criminal hero," Australian journalist Julie Clarke, who interviewed him, told AFP in 2021.
Nicknamed the "bikini killer", this suave and sophisticated man has been linked to more than 20 murders.
Charles Sobhraj's other nickname, "The Serpent", comes from his ability to assume other identities to escape justice.
It became the title of a hit series made by the BBC and Netflix which is inspired by his life.
Forty years in prison
Arrested in India in 1976, he spent 21 years behind bars, before managing to briefly escape in 1986 after drugging prison guards.
He was eventually recaptured in the Indian state of Goa.
Released in 1997, he retired to Paris but resurfaced in 2003 in Nepal, where he was spotted in the tourist district of Kathmandu and arrested.
The following year, a court sentenced him to life in prison for the 1975 murder of American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich.
Ten years later, he was also found guilty of the murder of the Canadian companion of this young woman.
Nadine Gires, a Frenchwoman who lived in the same building as Charles Sobhraj in Bangkok, told AFP last year that she initially found him to be a "cultured" and impressive character.
But in the end, "he was not just a trickster, a seducer, a thief of tourists, but an evil murderer".
With AFP
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