‘The Serpent’: French serial killer Charles Sobhraj to leave Nepal prison a year before completing 20-year sentence

Confessed French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Nepal, was ordered on Wednesday to be released because of poor health, good behaviour and having already served most of his sentence 20-year sentence.

The Supreme Court ruling also said Sobhraj, 78, had to leave the country within the next 15 days but did not specify to where.

Sobhraj was serving two life sentences in Nepal for the murders of two backpackers from the US and Canada. He is accused of killing more than 20 young Western backpackers across Asia during the 1970s and 1980s, usually by drugging their food or drink.

The Serpent Charles Sobhraj through the eyes of those who knew him

Life sentences in Nepal are usually 20 years. Sobhraj had completed 19 years of his 20-year sentence.

A court document said Sobhraj had already served more than 75 per cent of his sentence, making him eligible for release, and was suffering from heart disease.

“The court has ordered that if there is no other reason to keep him in jail, he should be released and sent back to his country within 15 days,” the Supreme Court’s spokesperson Bimal Paudel said.

Sobhraj’s lawyer Ram Bandhu Sharma said Sobhraj could be released by Thursday.

Thailand issued a warrant for the arrest of Sobhraj, known as the “bikini killer”, in the mid-1970s on charges of drugging and killing multiple backpackers.

He was also called “the serpent” because of his ability to disguise himself following his escape from a prison in India in the mid-1980s, where he was serving 21 years on murder charges. He was later caught and jailed there until 1997.

Last year, the BBC and Netflix jointly produced a television series dramatising his crimes called The Serpent.

Sobhraj returned to France after his release from India and in 2003 was arrested from a casino in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu and later charged there for murdering American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich. He has been held in a high-security jail in Kathmandu since 2003.

Sobhraj 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. However, his 2004 conviction in Nepal was the first time he was found guilty in court.