KATHMANDU: French serial killer Charles Sobhrajresponsible for multiple murders of foreign youths across Asia in the 1970s, is expected to be released from prison on Friday, prison officials and his lawyer said.
Sobhraj, 78, whose life was chronicled in the hit Netflix/BBC series “The Serpent,” will be deported to France within 15 days, according to a Nepalese court ruling.
His lawyer Gopal Shiwakoti Chintan told reporters on Thursday that initially after his release he was expected to be taken to Nepal’s immigration department.
“Once he is taken to the immigration area, it will be decided what happens next. He has heart problems, so he wants to be treated at Gangalal Hospital,” the lawyer said.
“But what will actually happen will be decided after he arrives at the immigration office.”
The Supreme Court ordered Sobhraj, who had heart surgery in 2017, to be released on Wednesday for health reasons after serving more than three-quarters of his sentence for the murder of two North Americans in Nepal. in the 1970s.
But his release from prison in Kathmandu was delayed by legal and logistical problems on Thursday.
Chintan said Sobhraj told him he “doesn’t mind staying an extra night in prison”.
A French foreign ministry spokesman told AFP that the country’s embassy in Nepal was monitoring the situation.
“If the deportation request is notified to them, France will have to accept it because Mr. Sobhraj is a French citizen.”
Born in Saigon to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother, later married to a Frenchman, Sobhraj embarked on a life of international crime and ended up in Thailand in 1975.
As a gem dealer, he befriends his victims, many of them backpackers on the hippie streets of the 1970s, before drugging, robbing and killing surname.
Clever and sophisticated, he was implicated in his first murder, a young American woman whose body was found on a beach wearing a bikini in 1975.
Nickname is “bikini killer“, he was ultimately implicated in more than 20 murders.
He was captured in India in 1976 and ended up serving 21 years in prison there, with a brief respite in 1986 when he escaped and was recaptured in the Indian coastal state of Goa.
Freed in 1997, Sobhraj lived in Paris, paying for journalists’ interviews, but returned to Nepal in 2003.
He was quickly discovered by journalist Joseph Nathan, one of the founders of the Himalayan Times, in a baccarat casino, and arrested in a casino.
“He looked harmless… I was lucky enough to recognize him,” Nathan told AFP on Thursday. “I think it’s karma.”
A Nepal court sentenced him to life in prison the following year for the murder of US tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. A decade later, he was also found guilty of murdering Bronzich’s Canadian companion. .
Behind bars, Sobhraj insisted that he was innocent in both murders and claimed that he had never been to Nepal before the trip that led to his arrest.
“I really didn’t do it, and I thought I would be out,” he told AFP in 2007 during an interview at Kathmandu’s Central Prison.
Thai police officer Sompol Suthimai, who worked with Interpol in a key role in securing Sobhraj’s arrest in 1976, pushed for his extradition to Thailand and trial for the murders. which he did there.
But on Thursday, he told AFP he had no objection to his release, as both he and the criminal he had been chasing were now too old.
“I don’t have any feelings for him anymore because it’s been so long,” said 90-year-old Suthimai. “I think he paid the price for his actions.”
Sobhraj, 78, whose life was chronicled in the hit Netflix/BBC series “The Serpent,” will be deported to France within 15 days, according to a Nepalese court ruling.
His lawyer Gopal Shiwakoti Chintan told reporters on Thursday that initially after his release he was expected to be taken to Nepal’s immigration department.
“Once he is taken to the immigration area, it will be decided what happens next. He has heart problems, so he wants to be treated at Gangalal Hospital,” the lawyer said.
“But what will actually happen will be decided after he arrives at the immigration office.”
The Supreme Court ordered Sobhraj, who had heart surgery in 2017, to be released on Wednesday for health reasons after serving more than three-quarters of his sentence for the murder of two North Americans in Nepal. in the 1970s.
But his release from prison in Kathmandu was delayed by legal and logistical problems on Thursday.
Chintan said Sobhraj told him he “doesn’t mind staying an extra night in prison”.
A French foreign ministry spokesman told AFP that the country’s embassy in Nepal was monitoring the situation.
“If the deportation request is notified to them, France will have to accept it because Mr. Sobhraj is a French citizen.”
Born in Saigon to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother, later married to a Frenchman, Sobhraj embarked on a life of international crime and ended up in Thailand in 1975.
As a gem dealer, he befriends his victims, many of them backpackers on the hippie streets of the 1970s, before drugging, robbing and killing surname.
Clever and sophisticated, he was implicated in his first murder, a young American woman whose body was found on a beach wearing a bikini in 1975.
Nickname is “bikini killer“, he was ultimately implicated in more than 20 murders.
He was captured in India in 1976 and ended up serving 21 years in prison there, with a brief respite in 1986 when he escaped and was recaptured in the Indian coastal state of Goa.
Freed in 1997, Sobhraj lived in Paris, paying for journalists’ interviews, but returned to Nepal in 2003.
He was quickly discovered by journalist Joseph Nathan, one of the founders of the Himalayan Times, in a baccarat casino, and arrested in a casino.
“He looked harmless… I was lucky enough to recognize him,” Nathan told AFP on Thursday. “I think it’s karma.”
A Nepal court sentenced him to life in prison the following year for the murder of US tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. A decade later, he was also found guilty of murdering Bronzich’s Canadian companion. .
Behind bars, Sobhraj insisted that he was innocent in both murders and claimed that he had never been to Nepal before the trip that led to his arrest.
“I really didn’t do it, and I thought I would be out,” he told AFP in 2007 during an interview at Kathmandu’s Central Prison.
Thai police officer Sompol Suthimai, who worked with Interpol in a key role in securing Sobhraj’s arrest in 1976, pushed for his extradition to Thailand and trial for the murders. which he did there.
But on Thursday, he told AFP he had no objection to his release, as both he and the criminal he had been chasing were now too old.
“I don’t have any feelings for him anymore because it’s been so long,” said 90-year-old Suthimai. “I think he paid the price for his actions.”
