Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer “The Serpent” at the center of the Netflix series, will be released.
PRAKASH MATEMA / AFP
Charles Sobhraj on June 1, 2011 in Nepal
SERIES – snake released soon? On December 21, Nepal’s highest court decided to release Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer portrayed in the Netflix series. snake, He is responsible for a series of murders in Asia in the 1970s.
The Supreme Court has ordered the release on health grounds of 78-year-old Charles Sobhraj, who has been in prison in the Himalayan republic since 2003 for the murders of two North American tourists, according to a copy of the verdict seen by AFP.
“Continuously keeping him in prison is not in line with the prisoner’s human rights”we can read in the document. “If there is no other case against him for his detention, this court orders that he be released today and (…) return to his country within two weeks. »
The court added that the serial killer needed open-heart surgery and that his release was in line with Nepalese law, which allows the release of bedridden prisoners who have served three-quarters of their sentences.
Charles Sobhraj will be released from the Kathmandu Central Jail on Thursday, a prison official told AFP. The official added that he must first appear in court for paperwork before being released.
Eight episodes on Netflix
netflix
Tahar Rahim plays Charles Sobhraj in “Ilan” series.
On NetflixSnakeThe eight-episode series tells the (true) story of Charles Sobhraj, played by Tahar Rahim. This French serial killer was the author of numerous tourist murders in Southeast Asia in the 1970s.
After a difficult childhood and several prison terms in France for petty crimes, Sobhraj travels to Thailand, Nepal and India with his partner Marie-Andree Leclerc (played by Jenna Coleman) in 1975-1976, committing a series of crimes along the way. above “Hippie Trail” Asian. His modus operandi? Befriending their victims before drugging, robbing and killing them, often Western travelers on a spiritual quest.
Trailer for “The Serpent” with Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman:
His involvement in the first murder occurred in 1975, when the body of a young American was found in a bikini on Pattaya Beach. Described as sophisticated and sophisticated, he has been linked to nearly two dozen murders. Her victims were strangled, beaten or burned to death, and she often used her male victims’ passports to travel to their next destination. Sobhraj’s nickname is “ snake”thus giving him the ability to assume other identities to escape justice.
In the series snake, this opinion is shared not only by Charles Sobhraj, but also by Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg and his then-wife Angela, who conducted a dangerous investigation when the Thai police refused to intervene. Both of them, who are still alive today, told the creators of the series about these events in detail.
Back and forth in prison
Charles Sobhraj was arrested in India after the poisoning death of a French tourist in a Delhi hotel in 1976 and sentenced to 12 years in prison for murder. Sobhraj eventually served 21 years in prison, with a brief break in 1986 when he escaped before being jailed again in the Indian coastal state of Goa.
After his release in 1997, he retired to Paris, but resurfaced in Nepal in 2003, where he was spotted in the Kathmandu tourist area and arrested. The following year, the court sentenced him to life in prison for the 1975 murder of American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich.
Ten years later, he was also found guilty of murdering Ms Bronzic’s Canadian boyfriend. In 2008, in prison, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas, 44 years his junior and the daughter of a Nepali lawyer.
