Nepalese justice announced Wednesday, December 21 the release for health reasons of Charles Sobhraj, nicknamed “The Serpent”. Crook, serial killer… Portrait of the one who should soon be repatriated to France.
Charles Sobhraj. This name may not mean much to you and yet. Nicknamed “The Serpent”, this 78-year-old Frenchman, previously detained in the Nepalese central prison in Kathmandu, is credited with numerous murders. Notorious crook and serial killer, he raged during the 70s on the roads of Asia, attacking in particular young backpackers whom he drugged, robbed and killed. On Wednesday, December 21, 2022, the Supreme Court of Nepal ruled that the man imprisoned in the Himalayan republic for almost 20 years should be released on medical grounds. The official document explains that “to keep him continuously in prison is not in accordance with the human rights of the prisoner. If there are no other cases pending against him to keep him in prison, this court orders his release. today and (…) the return to his country within two weeks”.
Locked up in Nepal for years because convicted of several murders in Asia, Charles Sobhraj has also been accused of many other murders for which his guilt has not been proven. Aside from the crimes attributed to him, the character has made a name for himself as a trickster and a poison expert. Charles Sobhraj began his misdeeds with petty thefts before being related to organized crime by making his specialty the theft of tourists in Asia whom he drugged beforehand.
Charles Sobhraj “The Serpent” accused of twenty murders
From 1975, the date of the first murder in which he was implicated, to 2003, his last arrest, “The Serpent” did not know much respite. It is first linked to the murder of an American tourist, Teresa Ann Knowlton, found dead in a bikini and deprived of her papers and her money on a Thai beach. Twenty other murders are attributed to Charles Sobhraj thanks to a modus operandi specific to the killer discovered in 1976 but without the guilt of the “Snake” having been demonstrated. The man and his girlfriend at the time then got into the habit of sympathizing with backpackers and Western tourists so they could drug them before stealing their papers and murdering them. The victims, male or female, could be strangled, burned, beaten or poisoned. The passports of the male victims were then used by Charles Sobhraj to move from country to country, because The Serpent raged between Thailand, India and Nepal.
The story of the “Snake”
“Le Serpent” partly grew up in France. Born in Saigon, French Indochina, in 1944 to a Vietnamese mother and an Indian father who divorced when he was 3 years old, Charles Sobhraj first stayed with his father in Vietnam. The child obtained French nationality when his mother married a French soldier who adopted young Charles in Marseille. He will commit several thefts and offenses in France which will send him to prison for a few years and twice.
In 1970, accompanied by his wife at the time, he headed for India where he mainly targeted tourists to rob them. Tracked down by the authorities in India and imprisoned for a time, Charles Sobhraj manages to escape by drugging the guard and leaves the country before returning there in 1974 to establish a new network. It was the following year that many murders were attributed to him, including the “bikini murders”. The first attributed to him is that of Teresa Ann Knowlton, a young American tourist whom he drugged then dressed in a bikini before strangling her on a Thai beach. Twenty will then be awarded to him.
Arrested in Kathmandu in 2004, the Nepalese capital, Charles Sobhraj was sentenced by the highest court for the first time to a life sentence for the murder of the American Connie Joe Bronzich, in Nepal, in 1975. Ten years later, La The country’s Supreme Court sentenced the serial killer a second time to life in prison for the murder of Laurent Carrière, a Canadian traveler.
Charles Sobhraj, a neighbor like no other
In the columns of Little Diary, in April 2021, the French Nadine Gires who contributed to the arrest of the serial killer returned to Charles Sobhraj. “He was our neighbor between October 1975 and April 1976”, she recalled, alluding to her ex-husband, before describing a completely charming and cultured individual at first sight. “When you don’t know he’s an assassin, he’s a pleasant man in society, he speaks several languages, he’s cultured, it was interesting to have him as a neighbor”, she explained, before nuance : “But the day when we understood that he was committing murders, it was difficult to keep face in front of him, I had moments of terrible anguish.”
However, something was wrong. “My ex-husband understood very early on that this guy was not clear, but from there to imagine that he was killing people…”, confided Nadine Gires. And to add: “It is true that it was weird, because all the people who came to his house fell ill.” At the Petit Journal, she then came back to a little anecdote: “One day, I asked her: ‘But what is going on with you Charles, everyone is getting sick?’ He simply replied: ‘Oh you know, they are backpackers, they eat in the street, swallow and drink anything, it’s the tourista’.”
A story publicized on Netflix by the series “The Serpent”
In addition to several books retracing his journey, it is thanks to the Netflix series “The Serpent” that the appalling journey of this man has become more widely known. Co-produced by the BBC, this series exploded the viewing counter when it was released. On the BBC iPalyer app alone, in February 2021, the series had more than 31 million views according to the Dailymail. Throughout eight one-hour episodes, actor Tahar Rahim lends his features to the criminal. The success of the series on Netflix but also on the BBC seems to have reached the ears of the criminal who, according to France info should this time have his story adapted to the cinema.
Charles Sobhraj, soon back in France?
A “return to his country within fifteen days”. These are the words of the Nepalese authorities. In short, unless there is an incredible twist, Charles Sobhraj should soon join the French sidewalk. What do the French authorities say? The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted to the news this Thursday, December 22, acknowledging that she had “been informed that the Supreme Court of Nepal had accepted the appeal of Mr. Charles Sobhraj requesting his release in view of his age and his state of health, and his deportation to France”. However, she claimed to have, at this stage, not yet received anything from the Nepalese authorities. “If a request for expulsion is notified to them, France would be required to grant it since Mr. Sobhraj is a French national”, she however conceded.