A French serial murderer known as The Serpent was released from a Nepalese prison after being convicted of multiple tourist murders in Asia during the 1970s.
Charles Sobhraj, 78, was released due to his age and good behavior, as determined by the court.
He served 19 years in prison in Nepal for the 1975 murder of two North Americans.
Sobhraj, whose narrative was depicted in the television show The Serpent, preyed on largely young Western tourists in India and Thailand along the hippie route.
The legendary killer was simultaneously serving two 20-year sentences in the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, for the 1975 murders of an American woman, Connie Jo Bronzich, and her Canadian travel companion, Laurence Carriere.
The most recent conviction occurred in 2014 when he was sentenced to a maximum security jail for the murder of Carriere.
Wednesday, however, the Supreme Court of Nepal approved Sobhraj’s release after his legal team successfully petitioned for a reduction in his prison term owing to health concerns.
A clause in Nepalese law permits the release of prisoners who have demonstrated good conduct and served 75% of their sentence.
According to AFP, the judgment reads, “Keeping him in prison indefinitely is contrary to the prisoner’s human rights,” and cites frequent treatment for heart illness as an additional reason for his release. In 2017, he had heart surgery.
Between 1972 and 1982, Sobhraj has been linked to around twenty murders in which the victims were drugged, strangled, assaulted, or burned.
He was dubbed The Serpent or the Bikini Killer due to his skill with deceiving disguises, his ability to evade capture, and his propensity to target young ladies.
Before his two convictions in Kathmandu, Sobhraj had already served two decades in prison for poisoning a bus of French tourists in India.
During that time, he was able to momentarily escape prison by drugging the guards. Later, he claimed that the escape was a plot to get his sentence prolonged and avoid deportation to Thailand, where he was wanted for five other killings.
In the mid-1970s, Thai officials issued an arrest warrant for him on charges of drugging and murdering six women, some of whom were discovered dead on a beach near Pattaya.
Following his 1997 release from prison in India, Sobhraj relocated to France, where he resided in Paris and granted journalists paid interviews.
However, he returned to Nepal and was arrested for Bronzich’s murder in 2003 after a reporter spotted him at a Kathmandu casino.
