Charles Sobhraja assassin A convict who police say killed more than 20 Western backpackers on the “hippie trail” through Asia in the 1970s and 1980s, returned to France on Saturday after nearly two decades behind bars in Nepal.

Nepal’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of Sobhraj, known as the “bikini killer” in Thailand, and “The snakefor his escape from the police, citing ill health and advanced age.

The French citizen born to an Indian father and a Vietnamese mother, Sobhraj, 78, landed at the main international airport in Paris shortly after 7 a.m. and was escorted off the plane by police to carry out identity checks.

“He’s fine, he’s a free man,” Mr. sobhraj, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre told Reuters. When asked what the next steps would be, she replied, “He is going to sue Nepal because the whole case against him has been fabricated.”

Sobhraj had been held in a maximum security prison in Nepal since 2003 when he was arrested for the murder of the American backpacker. Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. He was later convicted of murdering Bronzich’s Canadian friend, Laurent Carrière, and served 19 years of a 20-year prison sentence.

He is also suspected of other murders, including in the Thailandwhere the police says he killed six women in the 1970s, some of whom died on a beach near the resort town of Pattaya.

Sobhraj was arrested 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.

He told the French news agency AFP during the flight from Nepal that he was not guilty of the murders of Bronzich and Carrière.

“I have a lot to do. I have a lot of people to deal with,” said Sobhraj, quoted by AFP.

In 2021, the BBC and Netflix produced a drama series based on the story of the alleged Sobhraj murders.

France’s interior and justice ministries did not respond to questions from Reuters on whether Sobhraj could face criminal charges in France.

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