'Bikini killer' Charles Sobhraj deported to France after being released from Nepal jail

Kathmandu, Dec 23: Charles Sobhraj, the notorious French serial killer of Indian and Vietnamese parentage, was deported to France on Friday, hours after being released from a prison here where he served most of his sentence for a string of murders of backpackers across Asia in the 1970s.

Sobhraj, 78, was released from the Central Jail in Kathmandu and handed over to the immigration authorities to process his travel documents, officials told news agency PTI, two days after the Supreme Court ordered that he be released and deported to his home country.

Fanindra Mani Pokharel, joint secretary and spokesperson of the Ministry of Home Affairs, said Sobhraj will be barred from entering Nepal for the next ten years.

"The home ministry has deported Charles Sobhraj, barring him from entering Nepal for the next ten years," Pokharel was quoted as saying by The Kathmandu Post newspaper. Sobhraj will first fly to Doha and then to Paris on Qatar Airways flight QR647.

According to a report in Online Khabar Nepal citing a source, Sobhraj will first fly to Doha and then to Paris on Qatar Airways tonight. The Kathmandu-Doha flight will take off from Kathmandu airport at 6 pm. Once sent back to his homeland, the serial killer will be barred from entering the country forever, the report said, quoting government officials. However, it has been reported that he requested to be admitted to the Gangalal Hospital for treatment for ten days. He had heart surgery there in 2017.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court directed the prison management authority to free the notorious killer, and deport him to France within 15 days through immigration, unless he is wanted in some other case. A division bench of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha who had asked the government to arrange for his repatriation to France, concluded that Sobhraj should be freed as he has already completed 95 per cent of his jail term. His release was delayed by a day as the immigration authorities on Thursday requested to postpone his release till Friday citing a lack of space to accommodate him.

Dubbed ''the Bikini Killer'' for his proclivity to target young women, particularly young western backpackers, and ''the Serpent'' for his skill at deception and evasion, Sobhraj was serving a life-term in the Kathmandu jail since 2003 for the murder of American woman Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975 in Nepal.

In 2014, he was convicted of killing Laurent Carriere, a Canadian backpacker, and given a second life sentence.

Arrested on September 19, 2003, Sobhraj's lifetime imprisonment would have ended on September 18 next year. Sobhraj, who committed a string of murders across Asia in the 1970s, has been implicated in more than 20 killings, and served 21 years in prison in India for poisoning a French tourist and killing an Israeli national.

A life-term in Nepal means 20 years in jail.

The order by the division bench of Nepal's top court came after Sobhraj filed a plea claiming that he was put in prison for more than the period recommended for him. There is a legal provision to release prisoners who have completed 75 per cent jail term and showed good character during imprisonment.

Sobhraj, through his petition, claimed that he had completed his jail term as per the 'concessions' entitled to senior citizens of Nepal. He claimed that he had already served 19 of the 20 years of his sentence and had already been recommended for release for good behaviour. Sobhraj was spotted in a Kathmandu casino in August 2003 and arrested. He was slapped with a life sentence for the murder after a trial. He had been linked to multiple killings of backpackers.