Killer dubbed The Serpent arrives in France after release from Nepalese prison

Convicted killer Charles Sobhraj, suspected over the deaths of at least 20 tourists around Asia in the 1970s, has arrived in Paris as a free man after being released from a life sentence in a Nepalese prison.

It was the latest twist in a dramatic life depicted in a series co-produced by the BBC and Netflix called The Serpent, which aired last year. He has in the past admitted to killing western tourists around Asia.

Sobhraj, a 78-year-old French citizen, had been serving time for the deaths of American and Canadian backpackers in Nepal in 1975, but was released on Friday for health and other reasons.

He arrived on Saturday at Charles de Gaulle Airport in the French capital on a flight from Nepal via Qatar, said his French lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre.

“I’m fine, I’m glad” to be in France, he told the Associated Press in a brief phone conversation after arriving in Paris. “We are going to have lunch.”

French filmmaker Jean-Charles Deniau, who spoke to Sobhraj on 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. Sobhraj was born in Vietnam during French rule and claims French citizenship.

He is believed to have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong between 1972 and 1982.

Despite multiple legal cases against him, judicial authorities across the region struggled to convict him for the killings — or to keep him behind bars.

He was arrested in New Delhi in 1976 and accused of murdering two tourists and stealing their jewellery. He was convicted of theft but acquitted of murder.

In Thailand, he faced 14 murder charges, which could have brought the death penalty. He avoided being extradited by staying before the courts in India until the Thai case expired in 1996.

In 1986, he escaped from New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison after luring guards into sharing a drug-laced birthday cake, but was later recaptured.

In 1997, he was deported from India to France, where he lived freely but was investigated for allegedly trying to poison a group of French tourists in India.

He resurfaced in 2003 in a casino in the Nepalese city of Kathmandu, and was questioned about the unsolved murders of an American and a Canadian backpacker whose charred bodies were found on the city’s outskirts. He was convicted the following year and handed a life sentence.

Sobhraj insisted on his innocence in that case, though had in the past spoken of killing other tourists. When he was released from the Indian prison, he said he regretted aspects of his past.

Life sentences in Nepal are 20 years. In announcing his release this week, the Supreme Court said he has heart disease, and had served more than 75% of his sentence and had behaved well in prison, making him eligible for release.

He was freed on Friday and ordered to leave Nepal within 15 days. A friend helped finance a ticket to France, and the French Embassy prepared travel documents allowing him to leave, lawyer Gopal Siwakoti Chitan said.

Ms Coutant-Peyre welcomed his release, saying: “I’m very happy but very shocked that it took 19 years to obtain his normal freedom.” She claimed his murder conviction in Nepal was a “fabricated case” and said the French government did not do enough to help or defend him.

She added that Sobhraj had watched The Serpent and said it was “garbage first of all, and that 70% of it is totally false”.

His “serpent” nickname stems from his reputation as a disguise and escape artist. He was also known as “the bikini killer” because he often targeted young women.