Lagatar24 Desk
Kathmandu, Dec 22: After over 20 years in prison in Nepal, Charles Sobhraj, a killer who authorities believe was responsible for a series of killings in the 1970s and 1980s, is scheduled to be released on Thursday, according to his attorney.
On the “hippie trail” through Asia, Sobhraj, a 78-year-old French national is suspected of killing more than 20 Western backpackers, generally by drugging their food or drink while stealing them.
Since his arrest in 2003 on suspicion of killing American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975, he had been detained in a high-security facility in Kathmandu. Sobhraj denied killing the American woman, and his attorneys claimed the accusation was merely presumptive. Later on, he was also convicted guilty of the murder of Laurent Carriere, a Canadian acquaintance of Bronzich. He was, however, under suspicion for many more murders.
In the middle of the 1970s, Thailand, where he was dubbed the “bikini murderer,” issued a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of drugging and murdering six women, some of whom were found dead on a beach close to the Pattaya resort. However, he was imprisoned in India before he could face those accusations.
Invoking his advanced age, the Nepalese Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered his release from prison, where he had already spent 19 years of a 20-year term.
According to Sobhraj’s attorney Ram Bandhu Sharma, he will likely leave a high-security jail in Kathmandu after 10 am (04:15 GMT). He would be escorted to the immigration office for documentation before being sent to France within the following 15 days.
Sobhraj was born to Vietnamese and Indian parents. His associates label him as a murderer, thief, seducer, and scam artist. Due to his skill in disguising himself after making his getaway from an Indian prison in the middle of the 1980s, he also acquired the nickname “the serpent.” Later, he was apprehended and imprisoned there until 1997.
After being freed in India, he returned to France, but in 2003 he was detained in Kathmandu’s casino in connection with the 1975 slayings of Bronzich and Carriere. His crimes were dramatised in “The Serpent,” a TV series that was co-produced by the BBC and Netflix last year.
