A French citizen, also known as the ‘Bikini Killer’, has been accused of murdering more than 20 backpackers in Asia.
Serial killer Charles Sobraj, known as “The Serpent,” who police say was responsible for a string of murders in the 1970s and 1980s, is due to be released from a Nepalese prison, according to Himalayan officials. The country’s Supreme Court has ruled.
A 78-year-old French citizen has served 19 years in prison for the murder of an American and Canadian backpacker. Nepal’s life sentence for him is 20 years.
Although he has admitted to killing at least 20 young Western backpackers in Asia, usually by drugging his food and drink, he was convicted in court in Nepal in 2004. It was the first time he was convicted in
Thailand first issued an arrest warrant for him on charges of drugging and killing six women on a beach in Pattaya in the mid-1970s.
Sobhraj is known as “Bikini Killer” and “Snake”. This is due to their ability to disguise themselves and assume other identities to evade justice. He managed to escape from an Indian prison in his mid-1980s. He was later arrested and imprisoned in New Delhi’s high-security Tihar Prison until 1997. He resurfaced in Kathmandu in his September 2003.
“It is against the human rights of prisoners to keep him in prison continuously,” read a copy of Wednesday’s ruling seen by the AFP news agency.
“If there are no other cases pending that should keep him in prison, this court will release him by today and order him to return to his country within … 15 days,” it said.
Sobraj required open-heart surgery and his release was in line with the law allowing the compassionate release of bedridden prisoners who had already served three-quarters of their sentence, the verdict added.
hippie trail murder
After a troubled childhood and several prison sentences in France for petty crimes, Sobraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s, following the hippie trail from Europe to Southeast Asia, working with young backpackers. We got along and robbed.
“He was educated and well-mannered,” said Nadine Giles, who befriended Sobraj when she moved into her apartment in Bangkok in 1975.
However, she soon became afraid of her fast-talking neighbor.
“A lot of people were sick in his house,” she told AFP last year. did.”
Sobhraj underwent five-hour heart surgery in 2017 and Wednesday’s ruling said he continues to receive regular treatment for heart disease.
Sobhraj is likely to be released from Kathmandu’s central prison on Thursday, a prison official told AFP.
Before he can be released, he must first appear in a lower court for administrative proceedings, officials said.
He is accused of strangling, beating, and burning backpackers, as well as using the passports of male victims to travel to their next destination.
Sobhraj’s nickname, ‘The Serpent’, became the title of a hit series based on his life produced by the BBC and Netflix.
In 2008, in prison, Sobraj married Nihita Biswas, 44 years his junior and the daughter of a Nepalese lawyer.
