Charles Sobhraj will be freed from jail today. (AFP File Photo)
Charles Sobhraj, a convicted killer responsible for a series of murders in the 1970s and 1980s, will be freed from jail in Nepal on Thursday. This comes after an order from Nepal's Supreme Court.
Here are five facts on his India connection:
Sobhraj, now 78, was born to an Indian father and Vietnamese mother. Those who know him for a long time describe Sobhraj as a con artist, a seducer, a robber and a murderer. He used to charm and befriend his victims before drugging, robbing and murdering them. Two of Sobhraj's victims were found wearing only bikinis, after which he was nicknamed "the Bikini Killer".
Thailand had issued a warrant for the arrest of Sobhraj in the mid-1970s on charges of drugging and killing six women, all wearing bikinis, on a beach in Pattaya, a Reuters report said. But before he could stand trial on those charges, he was jailed in India.
Sobhraj was sentenced in India to 21 years in jail on murder charges. Adept at changing his appearance, he earned another sobriquet, "the serpent", after his escape from prison there in the mid-1980s. He was caught and returned to jail until 1997.
Sobhraj returned to France after being released from jail in India. But in 2003, he was arrested at a casino in Nepal's capital Kathmandu and convicted of murdering American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich. Sobhraj denied killing the American woman, but years later he was also found guilty of killing Ms Bronzich's Canadian friend, Laurent Carriere.
Charles Sobhraj had been held in a high-security jail in Kathmandu since 2003. But Nepal's Supreme Court ordered his release due to his age. He had served 19 years of his 20-year life sentence (according to Nepal's rules).
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