The Prague Post - 'Serpent' serial killer Charles Sobhraj arrives in France after release

EUR -
AED 4.262031
AFN 77.159165
ALL 96.2514
AMD 444.126969
ANG 2.077509
AOA 1064.048412
ARS 1659.015129
AUD 1.763958
AWG 2.090095
AZN 1.968919
BAM 1.951282
BBD 2.337787
BDT 141.352705
BGN 1.955787
BHD 0.437422
BIF 3423.056828
BMD 1.160358
BND 1.503718
BOB 8.020395
BRL 6.213676
BSD 1.160712
BTN 102.941644
BWP 15.453219
BYN 3.945365
BYR 22743.021637
BZD 2.334395
CAD 1.62008
CDF 2796.463117
CHF 0.931533
CLF 0.028124
CLP 1103.442725
CNY 8.261174
CNH 8.298876
COP 4517.854834
CRC 584.147435
CUC 1.160358
CUP 30.749494
CVE 109.944269
CZK 24.378891
DJF 206.219091
DKK 7.467288
DOP 72.749252
DZD 151.231838
EGP 55.179325
ERN 17.405374
ETB 168.130545
FJD 2.625852
FKP 0.863274
GBP 0.867611
GEL 3.150431
GGP 0.863274
GHS 14.458582
GIP 0.863274
GMD 84.125156
GNF 10066.107831
GTQ 8.893408
GYD 242.836677
HKD 9.029438
HNL 30.447974
HRK 7.532927
HTG 151.878333
HUF 391.510716
IDR 19264.963828
ILS 3.794882
IMP 0.863274
INR 103.036443
IQD 1520.069303
IRR 48804.668302
ISK 141.449847
JEP 0.863274
JMD 185.779836
JOD 0.822732
JPY 177.415871
KES 150.270711
KGS 101.473743
KHR 4665.800772
KMF 490.831248
KPW 1044.322759
KRW 1653.174165
KWD 0.355697
KYD 0.96726
KZT 627.088008
LAK 25150.764915
LBP 103910.080626
LKR 351.226752
LRD 211.939708
LSL 20.00478
LTL 3.426236
LVL 0.701889
LYD 6.283332
MAD 10.576664
MDL 19.70238
MGA 5193.763774
MKD 61.612783
MMK 2435.872496
MNT 4174.181431
MOP 9.304815
MRU 46.269327
MUR 52.908803
MVR 17.756916
MWK 2014.96541
MXN 21.302814
MYR 4.892047
MZN 74.144449
NAD 20.00419
NGN 1705.784207
NIO 42.53896
NOK 11.596039
NPR 164.70663
NZD 2.008704
OMR 0.446154
PAB 1.160707
PEN 3.994529
PGK 4.854943
PHP 67.38223
PKR 326.275467
PLN 4.253885
PYG 8105.232727
QAR 4.224851
RON 5.094787
RSD 117.193879
RUB 94.521415
RWF 1680.198741
SAR 4.352325
SBD 9.550377
SCR 16.749976
SDG 697.893464
SEK 10.969145
SGD 1.504584
SHP 0.911859
SLE 27.059833
SLL 24332.136508
SOS 663.147181
SRD 44.270565
STD 24017.072955
STN 24.866477
SVC 10.156483
SYP 15086.760527
SZL 20.004542
THB 37.74936
TJS 10.794459
TMT 4.061254
TND 3.388823
TOP 2.717672
TRY 48.388227
TTD 7.88175
TWD 35.48255
TZS 2847.609647
UAH 48.131354
UGX 3986.76883
USD 1.160358
UYU 46.332719
UZS 13982.316852
VES 219.32259
VND 30587.043386
VUV 140.657895
WST 3.215194
XAF 654.441672
XAG 0.023517
XAU 0.000287
XCD 3.135927
XCG 2.091856
XDR 0.811915
XOF 653.28213
XPF 119.331742
YER 277.371984
ZAR 19.918211
ZMK 10444.619301
ZMW 27.532132
ZWL 373.634882
  • RBGPF

    -1.0800

    77.14

    -1.4%

  • CMSD

    -0.0400

    24.36

    -0.16%

  • RYCEF

    -0.1900

    15.35

    -1.24%

  • SCS

    -0.0350

    16.825

    -0.21%

  • NGG

    -0.5000

    73.38

    -0.68%

  • CMSC

    0.0400

    23.78

    +0.17%

  • RELX

    0.2350

    45.675

    +0.51%

  • RIO

    1.3750

    67.625

    +2.03%

  • GSK

    -0.0350

    43.465

    -0.08%

  • BCC

    1.5500

    76.07

    +2.04%

  • AZN

    -0.5100

    85.36

    -0.6%

  • VOD

    -0.0200

    11.25

    -0.18%

  • JRI

    0.0400

    14.11

    +0.28%

  • BCE

    -0.1700

    23.12

    -0.74%

  • BTI

    -0.5200

    51.46

    -1.01%

  • BP

    -0.4750

    34.495

    -1.38%

'Serpent' serial killer Charles Sobhraj arrives in France after release
'Serpent' serial killer Charles Sobhraj arrives in France after release / Photo: Atish PATEL - AFP

'Serpent' serial killer Charles Sobhraj arrives in France after release

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, arrived in France on Saturday after almost 20 years in prison in Nepal.

Text size:

Nepal's top court ruled on Wednesday that he should be freed on health grounds and deported to France within 15 days.

On Friday, he was released and put on a flight at Kathmandu airport to take him to Paris via Doha. While on the flight to Doha, he insisted to an AFP journalist that he was "innocent".

Sobhraj's life was chronicled in the series "The Serpent", co-produced by Netflix and the BBC.

Posing as a gem trader, he would befriend his victims, many of them Western backpackers on the 1970s hippie trail, before drugging, robbing and murdering them.

"I feel great... I have a lot to do. I have to sue a lot of people. Including the state of Nepal," Sobhraj told AFP on Friday onboard the plane.

Asked if he thought he had been wrongly described as a serial killer, the 78-year-old said: "Yes, yes."

He landed in the French capital on Saturday morning, an AFP reporter confirmed.

On arrival at Paris, he was taken away by border police for extra "identity checks", according to an airport source.

The airport source said he was "not wanted" by the authorities in France and that once all the checks had been carried out, he would be able to leave the airport.

- 'Bikini killer' -

Born in Saigon to an Indian father and a Vietnamese mother who later married a Frenchman, Sobhraj embarked on an international life of crime and ended up in Thailand in 1975.

Suave and sophisticated, he was implicated in the murder of a young American woman, whose body was found on a beach wearing a bikini.

Nicknamed the "bikini killer", Sobhraj was eventually linked to more than 20 murders.

He was arrested in India in 1976 and ultimately spent 21 years in jail there, with a brief break in 1986 when he drugged prison guards and escaped. He was recaptured in the Indian coastal state of Goa.

Released in 1997, Sobhraj lived in Paris, giving paid interviews to journalists, but went back to Nepal in 2003.

- 'Karma' -

He was spotted in a casino playing baccarat by journalist Joseph Nathan, one of the founders of the Himalayan Times newspaper, and arrested.

"He looked harmless... It was sheer luck that I recognised him," Nathan told AFP on Thursday.

"I think it was karma."

A court in Nepal handed Sobhraj a life sentence the following year for killing US tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. A decade later, he was also found guilty of killing Bronzich's Canadian companion.

Talking to AFP among bemused fellow Qatar Airways passengers on Friday, Sobhraj insisted he was innocent of the killings in Nepal.

"The courts in Nepal, from (the) district court to high court to supreme court, all the judges, they were biased against Charles Sobhraj," he said.

"I am innocent in those cases, OK? So I don't have to feel bad for that, or good. I am innocent. It was built on fake documents," he added.

But on Thursday, Sompol told AFP he did not object to the release, as both he and the criminal he once pursued were now too old.

"I don't have any feelings towards him now that it's been so long," said Sompol, 90.

"I think he has already paid for his actions."

burs-rox/smw

X.Vanek--TPP