Notorious French con man and serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who inspired the popular series “The snake” of Netflix, responsible for various crimes committed in Asia in the 1970s, was released this Friday in Nepal.
The charismatic crook, 78, has spent two decades imprisoned in Nepal for the murder of two tourists in the 1970s.
He was released from prison on Friday due to health problems and was to be transferred to France the same day.
After a difficult childhood and several prison sentences in France for petty crimes, he began traveling in the early seventies, make friends with backpackers, which he ended up robbing, along what’s known as the “hippie trail,” a route that ran from Europe to Southeast Asia.
At some point he made it to Thailand, where he got involved his first murderthat of a young American whose body was found on a Pattaya beach in 1975.
cultured and courteous
“He was cultured, courteous”said Nadine Gires, who became friends with Sobhraj when he moved into her Bangkok apartment building in 1975.
But it didn’t take long for the woman to distrust her talkative neighbor, who posed as a gemstone dealer to attract travelers – who moved with a lot of money – a drug them, rob them and kill them.
“A lot of people have gotten home sick,” Gires told AFP last year. “He was not only a crook, a seducer, a thief of tourists, but an evil killer”.
Sobhraj, French citizen, polyglot, of Vietnamese mother and Indian father, He’s been linked to more than 20 murders.
His victims were strangled, beaten or burned, and Sobhraj often used the passports of the men he killed to get to his next destination.
He was nicknamed “The Serpent” for his ability to impersonate others and thus evade justice. That nickname gave its name to a television series produced by the BBC and Netflix, inspired by his life, which has had millions of viewers around the world.
Authorities caught him in India in 1976, where he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
From his cell, Sobhraj sold his story to a publisher and was interviewed by Australian journalist Julie Clarke, to whom he recounted his murders in great detail.
“He despised backpackers, he saw them as poor youth, drug addicts,” the reporter explained to AFP in 2021. “He saw himself as a criminal hero,” he said.
Sobhraj spent 21 years in prison, except for 22 days, in 1986, when he managed to escape his cell by feeding his guards biscuits, cakes and grapes mixed with sleeping pills.
They caught him at a restaurant in the coastal state of Goa. He later said he fled to get an increased sentence in India and to avoid extradition to Thailand, where he could be sentenced to death.
Upon his release from prison, Sobhraj returned to Paris, where he led a quiet life.
In 2003 he was seen again in Nepal, in a tourist district of Kathmandu, and days later he was arrested in a casino.
a court sentenced him to life imprisonment the following year for the murder of American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975.
A decade later, a Nepalese court convicted him of murdering Bronzich’s fellow traveler, Canadian Laurent Carriere, whose passport Sobhraj used to leave Nepal after committing his crimes.
In 2008 married Nihita Biswas, 44 years his junior that he and his Nepalese lawyer’s daughter, in a secret ceremony, in prison.
Sobhraj has at least one daughter from a previous relationship who lives in France.
By Paavan Mathem, AFP
ap
Source: Clarin
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.