Nepal releases French serial killer "The Serpent' after 19 years in jail

A Frenchman whose life of seduction, murder and escape on the "hippie trail" during the 1970s became the subject for a hit TV series was freed on Friday after 19 years in prison in Nepal. 

Frenchman Charles Sobhraj was released from jail in Nepal after serving a 19-year jail term for the murders of backpackers in Asia in the 1970s. AP - Niranjan Shrestha

Charles Sobhraj, who was nicknamed the "Serpent" at the height of his crimes, was driven out of Central Jail in Kathmandu in a heavily guarded police convoy.

Sobhraj, 78, was convicted in 2003 for the murder of American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975.

He was given a life sentence – 20 years in Nepal for the killing.

Supreme court judges in Nepal said he could go free because he had served more than 75 percent of the term. His good conduct in jail and his ailing heart condition had also contributed to his early release.

Judges told him to leave Nepal within 15 days.

Sobhraj has admitted killing several Western tourists. He is suspected of murdering at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong during the 1970s.

However, his conviction in Nepal was the first time he was found guilty in court.

In Thailand, where he was known as the "bikini killer", authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in the mid-1970s on charges of drugging and killing six women.

But 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.

Jail

Sobhraj was sent to New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison on suspicion of theft.

He escaped in 1986 after drugging prison guards with cookies and cakes laced with sleeping pills.

Days later, police caught him at a restaurant in the Indian beach holiday state of Goa.

He remained in jail for a further 10 years before he was deported without charge to France in 1997.

He resurfaced in September 2003 in Kathmandu where he was arrested in connection with the murders of Bronzich and Laurent Carriere, after being spotted at a casino.

Last year, the BBC and Netflix jointly produced a TV series called The Serpent dramatising Sobhraj's crimes.

The show depicts his targeting of western backpackers in India and Thailand.