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Agence France-Presse

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, arrived in Paris on Saturday after almost 20 years in prison in Nepal.
Nepal’s top court ruled on Wednesday that he should be freed on health grounds and deported to France within 15 days. He was released from prison two days later.
On Friday, he boarded a flight at Kathmandu airport to take him to France via Doha. On arrival at the French capital, he was taken by border police for “identity checks”, according to an airport source.
The source said he had left the airport, evading a media scrum waiting in the arrivals hall.
His French lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, told reporters at the airport she was “very happy” he had been released, adding that he had been “unjustly sentenced in a fabricated case with false documents by the Nepali police”.
“It’s a scandal, he is presented as a serial killer, which is completely false”.
The Serpent Charles Sobhraj through the eyes of those who knew him
French filmmaker Jean-Charles Deniau, who spoke to Sobhraj upon his arrival in Paris and is releasing a film and book about his life, said, “He’s doing well. He has medicines. He will live in Paris, and a little bit everywhere.”
The French government did not respond to requests for comment on whether he could face judicial challenges in France. The statute of limitations for most serious crimes in France is 20 years.
Sobhraj’s life was chronicled in the series The Serpent co-produced by Netflix and the BBC.
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.
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.
He was implicated in the 1975 killing of a young American woman whose body was found on a beach, and was eventually linked to more than 20 murders.
Arrested in India in 1976, he 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.


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.
How an amateur detective hunted down ‘despicable’ killer Charles Sobhraj
Thai police officer Sompol Suthimai, whose work with Interpol was instrumental in securing the 1976 arrest, had pushed for Sobhraj to be extradited to Thailand and tried for murders there.
But on Thursday, Sompol said 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.”
Additional reporting by Associated Press, Reuters


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France

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj lands in Paris after release from Nepal jail

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj sits on a flight departing from Kathmandu to France. Photo: AFP

Amateur investigator who hunted down serial killer Charles Sobhraj ‘curious’ to see what happens next

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj leaves a Paris court in 1997. Photo: AFP

A life-size statue of Charles Sobhraj is placed at a restaurant in Goa from where he was arrested in 1986 by the Mumbai police. Photo: AFP

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

Sobhraj (centre) after a court hearing in Kathmandu in 2011. Photo: AFP

Charles Sobhraj pictured in the custody of Indian police. ‘The Serpent’ spent more than two decades imprisoned in India. Photo: Handout

A poster for ‘The Serpent’ miniseries, now streaming on Netflix. Photo: Instagram

Sobhraj being escorted away from court in Kathmandu in 2004. Photo: AP

Sobhraj, centre, arrives at a court in New Delhi in 1996. Photo: AP

Marie-Andrée Leclerc, played by Jenna Coleman, and Sobhraj, played by Tahar Rahim, in the new BBC/Netflix miniseries ‘The Serpent’. Photo: Mammoth Screen / Handout

Inmates are seen sitting in a cell in Tihar jail in 2005. Photo: AFP

Sobhraj, centre, pictured with Nihita Biswas, left, after a court hearing in Kathmandu in 2011. Photo: AFP

French serial killer ‘The Serpent’ freed from Nepal prison after serving 75 per cent sentence

French serial killer, fraudster, and thief Charles Sobhraj, centre, leaving court in 1997. Photo: AFP

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Sobhraj, responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, was taken by border police for ‘identity checks’ after arriving at the French capital
His life was chronicled in the series ‘The Serpent’ co-produced by Netflix and the BBC



Sobhraj, responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, was taken by border police for ‘identity checks’ after arriving at the French capital.


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Crime

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj lands in Paris after release from Nepal jail

Sobhraj, responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, was taken by border police for ‘identity checks’ after arriving at the French capital His life was chronicled in the series ‘The Serpent’ co-produced by Netflix and the BBC

Sobhraj, responsible for multiple murders in the 1970s across Asia, was taken by border police for ‘identity checks’ after arriving at the French capital

His life was chronicled in the series ‘The Serpent’ co-produced by Netflix and the BBC