Charles Sobhraj, a convicted killer who police consider murdered greater than 20 western backpackers on the “hippie trail” by way of Asia within the Nineteen Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, arrived in France on Saturday after almost twenty years behind bars in Nepal, BFM TV reported.

Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered the discharge of Sobhraj, generally known as the “bikini killer” in Thailand, and ‘The Serpent” for his evasion of police, earlier this week on health grounds. A lawyer for Sobhraj in France didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

He had been held in a high-security jail in Nepal since 2003, when he was arrested on expenses of murdering American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. He was later discovered responsible of killing Bronzich’s Canadian pal, Laurent Carriere, and had served 19 years out of a 20-year sentence. Sobhraj advised French information company AFP on the flight out of Nepal that he was not responsible of murdering Bronzich and Carriere and that the case towards him was constructed on pretend paperwork.

“I have a lot to do. I have to sue a lot of people,” AFP quoted Sobhraj as saying. Associates have beforehand described Sobhraj, 78, as a con artist, a seducer, a robber and a assassin.

In 2021, the BBC and Netflix produced a drama collection primarily based on the story of Sobhraj’s alleged killings.

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