Nepal’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of Sobhraj, known as the “Bikini Killer” in Thailand, and ‘The Serpent’ citing his advanced age and health for evading police.
A French national who was born to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother, Sobhraj, 78, landed at Paris’ main international airport shortly after 7 a.m. and was taken off the plane by police for an identity check.
Sobhraj’s lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Pair, told Reuters: “He is fine, he is a free man.” When asked what would be his next step, he said, “He will file a legal complaint against Nepal as the whole case against him was fabricated.”
Sobhraj had been lodged in a high-security prison in Nepal since 2003, when he was arrested for the 1975 murder of American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich. Out of 20 years sentence.
But he was suspected of further murders, including in Thailand, where police say he murdered six women in the 1970s, some of whom were found dead on a beach near the resort of Pattaya.
He was jailed in India for poisoning a group of French tourists in the capital New Delhi in 1976, before he could stand trial on the charges against him in Thailand.
Sobhraj told the French news agency AFP on a flight out of Nepal that he was not guilty of killing Bronzich and Carrier.
“I have a lot to do. I have to sue a lot of people,” Sobhraj was quoted as saying by AFP.