Nepal SC orders release of Charles Sobhraj from jail

Nepal's top court ordered on Wednesday the release of Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer portrayed in the Netflix series "The Serpent" who was responsible for a string of murders across Asia in the 1970s. The Supreme Court ruled Sobhraj, 78, who has been in prison in the Himalayan republic since 2003 for murdering two North American tourists, should be freed on health grounds."Keeping him in the prison continuously is not in line with the prisoner's human rights,"  The Court issued an order to release him and arrange for him to return to his country within 15 days if he does not have to stay in prison in other cases. In 1975, he was found guilty by Kathmandu and Bhaktapur District Courts for the murder of American and Canadian citizens. Within two days of killing an American citizen in Manahara, Kathmandu, he murdered a Canadian citizen in Sanga of Bhaktapur in the same year. 

He has been serving his sentence in Central Jail Sundhara since 2003. He was eventually linked to more than 20 killings. His victims were strangled, beaten or burned, and he often used the passports of his male victims to travel to his next destination. He was arrested in India in 1976, after a French tourist died from poisoning at a Delhi hotel, and was sentenced to 12 years for murder. Sobhraj ultimately spent 21 years in jail, with a brief break in 1986 when he escaped and was caught again in the Indian coastal state of Goa. Released in 1997, Sobhraj retired to Paris but resurfaced in 2003 in Nepal, where he was spotted in Kathmandu's tourist district and arrested. In prison in 2008, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas, who is 44 years his junior and the daughter of his Nepalese lawyer.