The Supreme Court of Nepal on Wednesday ordered the release of Charles SobhrajFrench serial killer who murdered a series of Western tourists traveling across Asia in the 1970s.
Sobhraj, whose crimes inspire Netflix episode TV series Snakeserved a life sentence for killing 29-year-old American Connie Jo Bronzich in Nepal in 1975. The court also ordered the killer to return to his home country within 15 days, according to a police statement. . Kathmandu Post Office.
Sobhraj, 78, has been implicated in more than two dozen deaths, specifically targeting those traveling the “Hippie Trail” through Southeast Asia. A Frenchman of Indian and Vietnamese ancestry, Sobhraj spent several times in prison in France as a teenager for petty crimes. He started traveling the Hippie Trail on his own in the ’70s, seducing and robbing young travelers along the way.
But his crimes eventually escalated in violence. His first known murder victim was Teresa Knowlton, a 21-year-old backpacker from Seattle who was found drowned. Knowlton was seen wearing a floral bikini; After another of his female victims was found in a swimsuit, Sobhraj became known as the “Bikini Killer”.
His better known nickname “Snake” stems from his snake-like skill at evading law enforcement and his ability to coax victims into trusting him. “As long as I can talk to people, I can manipulate them,” Sobhraj brag once his biographer. At various times, he posed as a gem dealer or a drug dealer and even impersonated some of his victims to travel and escape.
It is unclear how many victims were poisoned, strangled or burned alive by Sobhraj. His murders were sometimes aided by an Indian accomplice, Ajay Chowdhury, and Sobhraj’s Quebecois mistress, Marie-Andrée Leclerc.
In India in 1976, Sobhraj tried to steal the passports of a group of French students by giving them sleeping pills on the pretext that they were antibiotics. The plan went awry and some of the victims sounded the alarm. Indian authorities arrested Sobhraj and he was sentenced to 12 years for poisoning and other charges, including the murder of Frenchman Jean-Luc Solomon.
Sobhraj ended up serving 21 years in prison except for a brief escape in 1986. After his release in 1997, Sobhraj moved to Paris, where he gave interviews about his dark criminal exploits.
Six years later, in 2003, he was again seen in Nepal and arrested by local authorities at a casino a few days later. Sobhraj was put on trial for the 1975 murder of Connie Jo Bronzich, his burned and stabbed body found in Kathmandu. Sobhraj was sentenced to life in prison in Nepal. A decade later, while in prison, he was also found guilty of murdering 26-year-old Laurent Carrière, Bronzich’s Canadian friend, with whom Sobhraj had used his passport to flee Nepal after killing his companions. .
In recent years, Sobhraj’s health declined and he underwent five-hour heart surgery in 2017. He continues to receive regular heart treatment, according to the ruling that ordered his release. let him be seen by AFP. “Keeping him in prison continuously is not in accordance with the human rights of prisoners,” the sentence added.
An official at Kathmandu’s Central Prison, where Sobhraj is being held, told the news agency that the killer would likely be released on Thursday.
