’Bikini Killer’ Charles Sobhraj, linked to 20 murders, released from Nepal jail after 19 years

Mangalore Today News Network / News18

Kathmandu, Dec 23, 2022: Charles Sobhraj, a convicted French serial killer, responsible for multiple murders of young foreigners in the 1970s across Asia, was freed from a Nepali jail on Friday.

 

Nicknamed “the Bikini Killer" and “the Serpent" due to his skill at deception and evasion, Sobharaj was serving a life-term in the Kathmandu jail since 2003 for the murder of American woman Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975 in Nepal.

The 78-year-old serial killer, whose life was chronicled in the successful series “The Serpent", was to be transferred to immigration detention ahead of his scheduled deportation to France, police said.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Nepal’s top court ruled that the expulsion should happen within 15 days but his lawyer had suggested on Thursday that this might be delayed because of health issues.

“Once he is taken to the immigration, then it will be decided what would be the next course. He has a heart issue, so he wants to get treatment from the Gangalal hospital," Gopal Shiwakoti Chintan told reporters.

The court ordered Sobhraj, who had heart surgery in 2017, should be released on health grounds after serving more than three-quarters of his sentence for murdering two North Americans in Nepal in the 1970s.

In 2014, he was convicted of killing Laurent Carriere, a Canadian backpacker, and given a second life sentence.

A life-term in Nepal means 20 years in jail. The order by the division bench of Nepal’s top court came after Shobraj filed a plea claiming that he was put in prison more than the period recommended for him.

There is a legal provision to release prisoners who have completed 75 per cent jail term and showed good character during imprisonment.

Sobhraj through his petition had claimed that he had completed his jail term as per the ‘concessions’ entitled to senior citizens of Nepal.

He claimed that he had already served 19 of the 20 years of his sentence and had already been recommended for release for good behaviour.

There were doubts on whether Sobhraj will be freed on Thursday as it was said that he has yet to serve jail term on two cases including a passport forgery. The Kathmandu District Court, however, later gave him clearance, local media reported.

Sobhraj was spotted in a Kathmandu casino in August 2003 and arrested. He was slapped with a life sentence for the murder after a trial.

Sobhraj is believed to have killed 15 to 20 people in 1970s. Two of his victims were found wearing only bikinis. He befriended mostly Western tourists in Asia, later drugging and killing them mostly between 1972 and 1976.