'I have to sue a lot of people': Charles Sobhraj arrives in France after 20 years behind bars in Nepal

Have To Sue A Lot Of People, Says Charles Sobhraj 

Agencies, 26 December 2022: Convicted serial killer Charles Sobhraj arrived in France on Saturday after nearly 20 years in prison in Nepal, as per reports. The 78-year-old French citizen, was reportedly freed from the Central Jail in Kathmandu on Friday morning. He was taken in a heavily guarded police convoy to the Department of Immigration.

His release came two days after the Supreme Court ordered that he be freed and deported to his home country, PTI reported.

As per a Reuters report citing Sobhraj's lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre,  he will sue Nepal alleging "the whole case against him was fabricated". Sobhraj too claimed that he was innocent. Talking to AFP while on the flight from Nepal to France, he said "I feel great... I have a lot to do. I have to sue a lot of people. Including the state of Nepal.

Sobhraj had been serving time for killing American and Canadian backpackers in the 1970s.

Very recently, he was the focus of a series co-produced by the BBC and Netflix called "The Serpent."

The Supreme Court had ordered that Sobhraj, who was sentenced to life in prison, be freed because of poor health, good behavior and having served more than 75% of his sentence, making him eligible for release, Associated Press reported. 

In the past, he has admitted to killing several Western tourists. It is believed that he killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong.

Earlier, Charles Sobhraj was held for two decades in New Delhi's Tihar prison on suspicion of theft but was deported to France in 1997. However, he resurfaced in September 2003 in Kathmandu.

As per PTI, Fanindra Mani Pokharel, the joint secretary and spokesperson of the Ministry of Home Affairs, said Sobhraj will be barred from entering Nepal for the next ten years. 

Dubbed "The Bikini Killer" for his proclivity to target young women, particularly young western backpackers, and "The Serpent" for his skill at deception and evasion, Sobhraj was serving a life-term in the Kathmandu jail since 2003 for the murder of his American girl friend Connie Jo Bronzich, 29, in 1975 in Nepal, PTI said. In 2014, he was convicted of killing Laurent Carriere, a 26-year-old Canadian backpacker, and given a second life sentence.

Sobhraj told French news agency AFP on the flight out of Nepal that he was not guilty of murdering Bronzich and Carriere and that the case against him was built on fake documents. "I have a lot to do. I have to sue a lot of people," AFP quoted Sobhraj as saying.

A life-term in Nepal means 20 years in jail.

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who was released from a Nepal jail in board a plane for his deportation to France said, “I feel great… I have a lot to do. I have to sue a lot of people. Including the state of Nepal.”

Charles, who is responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, said he felt “great” on being released after almost 20 years.

Asked if he thought he had been wrongly described as a serial killer, the 78-year-old said: “Yes, yes.”

Nepal’s top court ruled on Wednesday that he should be freed on health grounds and deported to France within 15 days.

On Friday, he was released and put on a flight at Kathmandu airport to take him via Doha to Paris, where he was due to land early on Saturday, the report added.

The life and times of Charles Sobhraj:

• Born in Saigon to an Indian father and a Vietnamese mother who later married a Frenchman, Sobhraj embarked on an international life of crime and ended up in Thailand in 1975.
• Posing as a gem trader, he would befriend his victims, many of them Western backpackers on the 1970s hippie trail, before drugging, robbing and murdering them.
• He was implicated in the murder of a young American woman whose body was found on a beach wearing a bikini in 1975.
• Nicknamed the “bikini killer”, he was eventually linked to more than 20 murders.
• He was arrested in India in 1976 and ultimately spent 21 years in jail.

The great escape

• In 1986, he drugged prison guards and escaped but was recaptured in Goa.
• He was then released in 1997,  and started living in Paris, giving paid interviews to journalists.
• Then he went back to Nepal in 2003.
• He was spotted in a casino playing baccarat by journalist Joseph Nathan, one of the founders of the Himalayan Times newspaper, and arrested.
• A court in Nepal handed Sobhraj a life sentence the following year for killing US tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. A decade later, he was also found guilty of killing Bronzich’s Canadian companion.