The Frenchman, also known as the “Bikini Killer”, is accused of murdering more than 20 backpackers in Asia.
Charles Sobhraj, a serial killer known as “The Serpent” who police say is responsible for a string of murders in the 1970s and 1980s, should be released from prison in Nepal, the Himalayan country’s Supreme Court has ruled.
The 78-year-old Frenchman has served 19 years in prison for the murders of an American and Canadian backpacker. Life sentences in Nepal are 20 years.
He has admitted to killing at least 20 young western backpackers across Asia, usually by drugging them food or drink, but his 2004 conviction in Nepal marked the first time he was found guilty in court.
Thailand first issued an arrest warrant for him in the mid-1970s on charges of drugging and killing six women on a Pattaya beach.
Sobhraj is known as “The Bikini Killer” and “The Snake” because he can disguise himself and assume other identities to evade justice. In the mid-1980s he managed to escape from a prison in India. He was later arrested and imprisoned in Tihar maximum security prison in New Delhi until 1997. In September 2003 he reappeared in Kathmandu.
“Keeping him in prison continuously is not in line with the prisoner’s human rights,” said a copy of Wednesday’s verdict leaked to AFP news agency.
“Unless there are other pending cases against him to keep him in prison, this court orders his release to date and … return to his country within 15 days,” it said.
Sobhraj required open-heart surgery and his release was in line with a law allowing the compassionate release of bedridden prisoners who had already served three-quarters of their sentence, the ruling added.
Hippie Trail Murders
After a troubled childhood and several jail terms in France for petty crimes, Sobhraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s, befriending and robbing young backpackers while walking the hippie trail from Europe to Southeast Asia.
French serial killer Charles Sobhraj leaves Kathmandu District Court after a hearing in 2011 [File: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters]
“He was cultured and polite,” said Nadine Gires, who became friends with Sobhraj when he moved into her Bangkok apartment building in 1975.
But she soon began to fear her fast-talking neighbor, who posed as a gem dealer to lure cash-strapped travelers before allegedly drugging, robbing and killing her.
“A lot of people got sick in his house,” she told AFP last year. “He wasn’t just a scammer, a seducer, a tourist mugger, he was an evil killer.”
Sobhraj underwent five-hour heart surgery in 2017 and Wednesday’s verdict said he continued to receive regular treatment for a heart condition.
Sobhraj is expected to be released from Kathmandu Central Prison on Thursday, an official at the prison told AFP.
He must first appear in a lower court for administrative formalities before he can go free, the official said.
He is accused of strangling, beating or burning backpackers and often using his male victims’ passports to travel to his next destination.
Sobhraj’s nickname “The Serpent” became the title of a BBC and Netflix hit series based on his life.
In prison, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas, 44 years his junior, in 2008, the daughter of his Nepalese lawyer.