Popularized by a series broadcast on Netflix, the French serial killer scored the roads of Asia to destroy and kill young backpackers in the 1970s.
by Sophie Landrin (New Delhi, correspondent)
The “snake” could return to France within fifteen days, after nineteen years spent behind the bars of a prison in Kathmandu, Nepal. Charles Sobhraj, 78, one of the most formidable XX century serial killers, was to be released, Thursday, December 22, by decision of the Supreme Court of Nepal, because of his age and his health. This very bulky French citizen with a macabre past, popularized in a BBC series, broadcast by Netflix and embodied by actor Tahar Rahim, had almost served his last penalty, twenty years, for the murder of two American and Canadian tourists.
But his criminal past is much heavier. He is suspected of having killed a dozen young Western travelers, perhaps more, in the 1970s and 1980s in Thailand, India, Nepal. His nickname, the serpent, testifies to his ability to escape justice but above all from his venomous seduction. Intelligent, elegant, manipulator, speaking several languages, he charmed his victims, backpackers in search of spirituality, then poisoned them, to steal money and passport, which he then used to change their identity and escape the proceedings.
Born 1944 in Saigon, Indochina, a Vietnamese mother and an Indian father, he acquired French nationality after the remarriage of his mother with a French officer. Arriving in France as a teenager, he quickly became a small offender, knows his first nights in a cell, married a Frenchwoman, Chantal. He flies with her to India in 1970 and settled in Bombay, where their daughter was born, Madhu. He lives from the fruit of small scams, then he begins to cross the hippie roads, destroy travelers after giving them sleeping pills, rocks a jewelry in New Delhi. His wife ends up leaving him.
“Bikini Killer”
In 1975, he landed in Bangkok with a Canadian met a few months earlier in India, Marie-Andrée Leclerc, her new partner and accomplice. Sobhraj calls herself Alain Gautier and says he is a merchant in precious stones. He commits his first murders. Six young women, all dressed in bikini, will be found on a Pattaya beach. The delicable press The mysterious killer of the nickname “Bikini Killer”.
Several times, he escaped the police, but in July 1976, after trying to intoxicate a group of French tourists in New Delhi, where he returned, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Indian capital. Justice condemns him to twelve years in prison, not for his attempted murder but for his attempted burglary of jewelry. As he approaches the release date, Charles Sobhraj escapes from Tihar’s prison in the Indian capital, disguised as a goalkeeper. He is apprehended to Goa, and sentenced to ten years of additional imprisonment. The maneuver allowed him not to be extradited to Thailand where he risked the death penalty. From his prison, the prisoner continues to manipulate his world, grants interviews, binds with journalists, builds his legend.
You have 17.81% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.