Charles Sobhraj: French killer ‘The Serpent’ set to be freed from Nepal jail

A French murderer who admitted to killing several western tourists is due to be set free from prison in Nepal after the country’s supreme court ordered his release. 

Charles Sobhraj, also known by the nickname The Serpent owing to his reputation as a disguise and escape artist, was serving two life sentences in Nepal for the murders of an American backpacker and a Canadian tourist.

Life sentences in Nepal are 20 years. Court documents said he had already served more than 75% of his sentence, making him eligible for release.

The order for the 78-year-old’s release was also made on the grounds of good behaviour and poor health, as he is suffering from heart disease.

The Frenchman has in the past admitted killing several western tourists and he is believed to have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong during the 1970s.

He is thought to have mostly targeted young backpackers on the hippie trail and also became known as the Bikini Killer as the bodies of several female victims were found in swimwear.

Thailand issued a warrant for the arrest of Sobhraj in the 1970s on charges of drugging and killing six women, all wearing bikinis, on a beach at Pattaya. However, he was jailed in India before he could stand trial on those charges.

Sobhraj was held for two decades in New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison for drugging a group of French tourists.

He escaped from India’s Tihar jail in 1986 after drugging prison guards with cookies and cakes laced with sleeping pills, but was recaptured and detained until 1997, when he returned to France following his release in India.

He resurfaced in September 2003 in Kathmandu where he was arrested and convicted in 2004 of the 1975 murder of American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich.

Several years later he was also found guilty of killing Bronzich’s Canadian friend, Laurent Carriere.

Sobhraj’s life and crimes were dramatised in joint BBC and Netflix drama The Serpent, released in 2021.

The supreme court’s ruling on Wednesday also said he had to leave the country within the next 15 days but did not specify to where.