Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the release of French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, portrayed as the “Snake” in the Netflix series “Paradise and the Serpent,” responsible for a series of murders in Asia in the 1970s.
The highest legal authority in the Asian country has ordered the release of 78-year-old Sobhraj, who has been imprisoned in this Himalayan republic for killing two American tourists since 2003, on health grounds, according to a decision consulted by AFP.
The Supreme Court said, “Continually being kept in prison is against the human rights of the detainee.”
The court’s decision said, “If there is no detention case against him in another prison, this court will decide to release him today (Wednesday) and (…) to return to his country within 15 days.”
After a troubled childhood and several prison sentences in France for petty crimes, Sobhraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s and found himself in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
The “modus operandi” was to lure and befriend its victims – most Western travelers in search of spirituality – and then drugged, robbed and killed them.
Sweet and sophisticated, Sobhraj’s first murder was that of a young American woman in a bikini, whose body was found on Pattaya beach in 1975.
evil killer
“He was cultured and kind,” said Nadine Gires, who befriended Sobhraj when he moved into his building in Bangkok that year.
However, he soon began to fear his neighbor, who was posing as a jewel merchant to lure penniless travelers with the intention of stealing and killing them.
“A lot of people were getting sick at home,” Gires told AFP last year. “He wasn’t just a swindler, a seducer, a tourist thief, he was a badass murderer,” she continued.
Sobhraj of Indian and Vietnamese descent is linked to more than 20 murders. Their victims were strangled, beaten, or burned. He often used the passports of male victims to travel to his next destination.
Sobhraj’s nickname “Snake” came from his ability to take on other identities to escape justice. The name of a successful series made by the BBC and Netflix based on his life was “The Paradise and the Serpent”.
life imprisonment
He was arrested in India after a French tourist was poisoned to death in a hotel in New Delhi in 1976. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the murder.
Ultimately, Sobhraj spent 21 years behind bars with a brief hiatus when he escaped from prison in 1986 and was recaptured in the coastal Indian state of Goa.
Released in 1997, Sobhraj moved to Paris but resurfaced in Nepal in 2003, where he was spotted and arrested in the tourist area of Kathmandu.
A court sentenced him to life imprisonment the following year for murdering American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. Ten years later, he was also found guilty of murdering Bronzich’s Canadian friend.
In 2008, while in prison, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas, the daughter of a Nepali lawyer and 44 years his junior, in a secret ceremony held in the prison.
With the fame brought by marriage, Biswas starred in the hit version of “Big Brother”, which aired in India in 2011.
Sobhraj has at least one daughter from a previous relationship who lives in France.
source: Noticias
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.