Charles Sobhraj, a Frenchman of Indian and Vietnamese parentage, will be handed over to the immigration department in Nepal on Friday morning after Supreme Court announced his release from jail, his lawyer Gopal Shivakoti Chintan said on Thursday. The notorious serial killer will spend one more day in prison as the authorities expressed their inability to arrange accommodation for him.
“Though everything has been cleared for his release from jail, he has to be handed over to the Immigration Department. The immigration authorities have requested to postpone his release till Friday as they need preparation for his accommodation," said Chintan.
On Wednesday, a joint bench of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Tilak Prasad Shrestha ordered to free the 78-year-old Sobhraj from jail.
Nicknamed “the Bikini Killer" and “the Serpent" due to his skill at deception and evasion, Sobharaj was serving a life term in 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.
A life-term in Nepal means 20 years in jail.
The order by the division bench of Nepal’s top court came after Shobraj filed a plea claiming that he was put in prison 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 had 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 17 of the 20 years of his sentence and had already been recommended for release for good behavior.
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.
(with inputs from PTI)
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