A Nepalese court on Wednesday ordered the release of Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer portrayed in the Netflix series “The Serpent”, who was responsible for several murders across Asia in the 1970s.

The Supreme Court ruled that Charles Sobhraj, 78, who has been jailed in the Himalayan republic since 2003 for the murders of two North American tourists, should be released on health grounds, according to a copy of the ruling seen by AFP.

Our correspondent had approached Charles Sobhraj in 1970. Read his story: How I Tame the “Snake”

“Holding him continuously in prison is not in accordance with the human rights of detainees,” the document read. “If there are no other cases pending against him to keep him in prison, this court orders his release today and (…) return to his country within fifteen days.”

Free immediately

The serial killer required open-heart surgery and his release was in accordance with Nepali laws which permit the release of bedridden prisoners who have served three-quarters of their sentences, the court added.

Charles Sobhraj is likely to be released from Kathmandu’s central prison on Thursday, a prison official told AFP. He must first appear in court for paperwork before he can go free, the official added.

tourist killer

After a troubled childhood and several imprisonments in France for minor crimes, Charles Sobhraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s and ended up in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

His modus operandi was to charm and befriend his victims, often spiritual-seeking Western backpackers, before drugging, robbing, and killing them.

His involvement in the first murder occurred in 1975 when the body of a young American was found on a beach in Pattaya wearing a bikini.

About the TV series, also read: “The Serpent”, poison from Charles Sobhraj

Described as gentle and sophisticated, he is linked to around twenty murders. Her victims were strangled, beaten, or burned, and she often used her male victims’ passports to travel to their next destination.

Sobhraj’s nickname, “snake”, came to him from his ability to assume other identities to escape justice. It became the title of a hit series created by the BBC and Netflix that was inspired by his life.

Imprisoned for twenty-one years

He was arrested in India in 1976, following the poisoning to death of a French tourist in a Delhi hotel, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for murder.

Sobhraj eventually spent 21 years in prison, with a brief break in 1986 when he escaped before being arrested again in India’s coastal state of Goa. Released in 1997, he retired to Paris but resurfaced in 2003 in Nepal, where he was spotted in the tourist district of Kathmandu and arrested.

The following year, a court sentenced him to life imprisonment for killing American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. Ten years later, he was also convicted of killing Ms Bronzich’s Canadian boyfriend.

In prison in 2008, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas, 44 years his junior and the daughter of his Nepali lawyer.