Kathmandu, Dec 22 (PTI) Charles Shobraj’s lawyer Shakuntala Biswas, whose daughter claimed to have married the notorious French serial killer, on Thursday said she was happy over the Nepal’s Supreme Court’s decision to free him, saying justice has been delivered. Biswas, who has been handling the case of Shobraj since 2008, is the mother of Nihita Biswas, who claimed to have reportedly married the French serial killer the same year in a secret Hindu ceremony in the jail.
“The government had made him a hostage of indecision and now the Supreme Court has given him justice. I am happy for that as I have been fighting for the case since 2008,” Biswas told reporters outside the Central Jail from where Sobhraj would be released.
A joint bench of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Tilak Prasad Shrestha on Wednesday ordered the jail authorities to free the 78-year-old Sobhraj.
The court verdict also asked the concerned authority to arrange for Sobhraj’s return to his country within 15 days.
Asked about the timing of Shobraj’s release, Biswas said currently the paperwork are being done and once that gets over he would walk free.
Nicknamed “the Bikini Killer” and “the Serpent” due to his skill at deception and evasion, Sobharaj is serving a life-term in the Kathmandu jail since 2003 for the murder of American woman Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975 in Nepal.
In 2014, he was convicted of killing Laurent Carriere, a Canadian backpacker, and given a second life sentence.
A life-term in Nepal means 20 years in jail.
The order by the division bench of Nepal’s top court on Wednesday came after Shobraj filed a plea claiming that he was put in prison more than the period recommended for him.
There is a legal provision to release prisoners who have completed 75 per cent jail term and showed good character during imprisonment.
Sobhraj through his petition had claimed that he had completed his jail term as per the ‘concessions’ entitled to senior citizens of Nepal.
He claimed that he had already served 17 of the 20 years of his sentence and had already been recommended for release for behaving well.
Sobhraj was spotted in a Kathmandu casino in August 2003 and arrested. He was slapped with a life sentence for the murder after a trial.
He has been linked to multiple killings of backpackers.
Sobhraj spent 21 years in jail in India with a brief 22-day break in 1986 when he escaped high security Tihar Jail after drugging security guards, whom he had served sweets on the pretext of celebrating his birthday.
Sobhraj is believed to have killed 15 to 20 people in 1970s. Two of his victims were found wearing only bikinis. He befriended mostly Western tourists in Asia, later drugging and killing them mostly between 1972 and 1976. PTI SBP RUP AKJ RUP
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