Serial killer Charles Sobraj flies to France
The man who inspired the Netflix series ‘The Serpent’ – was released from a Nepalese prison on Friday after spending nearly 20 years behind bars.
French serial killer Charles Soubraj sits on a flight from Kathmandu to France on December 23, 2022.
AFP
French serial killer Charles Soubraj, who was linked to at least 20 murders in Asia in the 1970s and inspired the Netflix series “The Serpent,” was released from his Nepalese prison on Friday. He was immediately transferred to France, where he is expected on Saturday morning.
“I’m fine. I have a lot of things to do. I have to file a case against many people, including Nepal,” Charles Sobhraj, 78, told AFP in an exclusive interview on the plane. Asked if he had been miscast as a serial killer, he replied, “Yes! Yes!”
Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled on his release on Wednesday, saying Charles Sopraj needed open-heart surgery and that the decision was made in accordance with Nepalese law that allows the release of bedridden prisoners who have already suffered three-quarters of their pain.
He ordered the extradition to France within 15 days of the serial killer, who has been jailed in the Himalayan republic since 2003 for killing two North American tourists. Charles Sobhraj, who was framed by police in bullet-proof clothing, did not make any comments to a crowd of journalists awaiting his release from jail.
The serial killer was originally scheduled to be released on Thursday, but his release was delayed by a day due to logistical and legal issues.
“Criminal Hero”
A French citizen with a Vietnamese mother and an Indian father, Charles Soubraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s and found himself in the Thai capital of Bangkok.
Posing as a gem dealer, he befriends his victims, mostly Western backpackers on the trail of 1970s hippies, before drugging, robbing and murdering them.
“He hated backpackers, poor young drug addicts. He saw himself as a criminal hero,” said Australian journalist Julie Clarke in an interview with AFP in 2021.
Nicknamed the “Bikini Killer” in 1975 after the body of an American woman wearing a single bikini was found on a beach in Pattaya, Thailand, the suave and sophisticated man was linked to more than 20 murders.
Another nickname for Charles Chobraj, “The Serpent”, came from his ability to assume other identities to escape justice. It became the subject of a hit series produced by the BBC and Netflix inspired by his life.
“Cruel Murderer”
Arrested in India in 1976, he spent 21 years behind bars after a brief escape in 1986 for drugging prison guards. He was eventually recaptured in the Indian state of Goa.
Released in 1997, he retired to Paris, but reappeared in Nepal in 2003, where he was spotted in the tourist district of Kathmandu and arrested.
The following year, a court sentenced him to life in prison for the 1975 murder of American tourist Connie Jo Broncich. Ten years later, he was also convicted of murdering Ms Broncich’s Canadian friend.
Nadine Cress, a French woman who lived in the same building as Charles Sobraj in Bangkok, told AFP last year that she found him a “cultured” and engaging character. But in the end, “he is not only a trickster, a seducer, a thief of tourists, but an evil murderer.”
AFP
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