‘Bikini Killer’ released from Nepal prison after 19 years

Nepal’s top Court also tells government to send him to his home country France in 15 days

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj (centre) is escorted by Nepalese police in 2014 (AFP via Getty Images)

Notorious serial killer Charles Sobhraj, known as south Asia’s “Bikini Killer”, will soon be freed from jail after nearly two decades, as per the orders of the Supreme Court of Nepal.

The 78-year-old serial killer has been in prison in Nepal since 2003 for murdering two North American tourists in the 1970s.

The country’s top court on Wednesday ordered his release on the grounds of ill health and age. The court order said “keeping him in the prison continuously is not in line with the prisoner’s human rights”.

The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported that a division bench of Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha asked the Nepal government to also arrange to send him to his home country, France, within 15 days.

The apex court, responding to the petitions seeking the release of Sobhraj, on Wednesday decided that he should be freed as he has already completed 95 per cent of his jail term.

“The regulation on prison management envisions a waiver of up to 75 per cent of the jail term of the prisoners over 65 years of age and with good conduct,” the verdict read.

Sobhraj’s lawyers had been demanding clemency for a long time. In different petitions, they had demanded a waiver of his jail sentence.

Sobhraj was arrested in Nepal capital Kathmandu and a court there had subsequently sentenced him to life imprisonment for murdering American tourist Connie Joe Bronzich in 1975. He was convicted of killing Canadian backpacker Laurent Carrière in 2014 and given a second life sentence.

His life imprisonment sentence would end on 18 September 2023.

Sobhraj earned the nickname “Bikini Killer” after reportedly committing two dozen murders followed by audacious prison escapes.

A few of his many victims were wearing bikinis when their bodies were found. According to many reports, Sobhraj used to seduce his victims before killing them.

Sobhraj allegedly often posed as a drug dealer and would then befriend and kill tourists.

He was also a media obsession and several movies and documentaries were made about him. He also inspired multiple books, with a Netflix series, The Serpent, based on his alleged crimes as well.

Sobhraj reportedly led a flamboyant lifestyle even when inside prison. In Tihar jail in India’s capital Delhi – from where he made an audacious escape – he was often allowed weekend parties and conjugal visits from “fans”.

Sobhraj’s real name is Hotchand Bhawnani Gurumukh Sobhraj and his father was an Indian man while his mother was Vietnamese.

When he was four, his father abandoned him and his mother remarried a French army officer who, as his biographies say, disliked Sobhraj. In 1963 in Paris, Sobhraj received his first jail sentence for burglary.