The French national, also known as the ‘Bikini Killer’, has been charged with the murder of more than 20 backpackers in Asia.
Charles Sobhraj, a serial killer known as “The Serpent” who police say is responsible for a series of murders in the 1970s and 1980s, will be released from prison in Nepal, the court said. The Supreme Court of the Himalayan nation has ruled.
The 78-year-old French national has served 19 years in prison for the murder of an American and Canadian backpacker. The life sentence in Nepal is 20 years.
He has admitted to killing at least 20 young backpackers across Asia, often by drugging their food or drink, but his 2004 conviction in Nepal was the first time he We were convicted in court.
Thailand first issued a warrant for his arrest in the mid-1970s on charges of drugging and killing six women on a beach in Pattaya.
Sobhraj is known by the nicknames “Bikini Killer” and “Snake” for his ability to disguise and assume other identities to evade justice. He escaped from an Indian prison in the mid-1980s. He was later arrested and imprisoned at the maximum security Tihar prison in New Delhi until 1997. He reappeared in September 2003 in Kathmandu.
“Keeping him in prison continuously is incompatible with the human rights of prisoners,” a copy of Wednesday’s ruling read by AFP news agency.
“If there are not any other cases pending against him to keep him in jail, this court orders his release today and… he will return to his home country within a few days. 15 days,” it said.
The verdict added that Sobhraj needed open-heart surgery and his release was in line with a law that allows the release of bedridden prisoners who have served three-quarters of their sentences.
The Hippie Trail Murders
After a difficult childhood and multiple prison sentences in France for petty crimes, Sobhraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s, befriending and robbing young backpackers as he traveled along the Road. Hippie trail from Europe to Southeast Asia.
Nadine Gires, who befriended Sobhraj when he moved into her Bangkok apartment complex in 1975, said: “He’s cultured, polite.
But she soon began to fear her fast-talking neighbor, who posed as a gem dealer to attract cash-strapped tourists before being accused of drugging, robbing and killing them.
“Many people got sick in his house,” she told AFP last year. “He is not only a con man, a seducer, a tourist robber, but also a wicked killer.”
Sobhraj underwent five-hour heart surgery in 2017 and Wednesday’s ruling said he is still receiving regular heart treatment.
Sobhraj is likely to be released from Kathmandu’s Central Prison on Thursday, an official at the prison told AFP.
The official said he will first have to appear in a lower court to carry out administrative proceedings before he can be released.
He was accused of strangling, beating or burning backpackers and often used the passports of male victims to travel to their next destination.
Sobhraj’s rant, “The Serpent”, became the title of a hit series by BBC and Netflix, based on his life.
In prison in 2008, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas, 44 years younger than him and the daughter of a Nepalese lawyer.
