French serial killer Charles “Le Serpent” Sobhraj, responsible for several murders of young foreigners in Asia in the 1970s, was released from a Nepalese prison on Friday, an AFP journalist reported.

Sobhraj, 78, was transferred to immigration detention ahead of his deportation to France which, although scheduled within 15 days and likely to be delayed due to his health problems, is due to take place this Friday.

– I feel good, I’m flying to Paris. I have a book and a documentary coming up,” Sohbraj said over the phone, “sounding excited” after his release from prison, according to British newspaper The Guardian.

His lawyer confirmed the trip:

— The Nepalese government wants to transfer him as soon as possible. Sobhraj too,” said Gopal Shiwakoti Chintan, who bought him a plane ticket on Qatar Airways. — The French Embassy has provided you with a travel document.

The High Court on Wednesday ordered the release of Sobhraj, who underwent heart surgery in 2017, on health grounds after serving more than three-quarters of his sentence for the murders of two Americans in Nepal in the 1970s.

A French foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday that its embassy in Nepal was monitoring the situation.

“If a deportation request is notified to us, France will be obliged to grant entry, because Mr. Sobhraj is a French citizen,” he said.

Historical

After a troubled childhood and several prison sentences in France for petty crimes, Sobhraj began traveling the world in the early 1970s and ended up in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok.

His modus operandi was to charm and befriend his victims – many of whom were spiritually-seeking Western backpackers – before drugging, robbing and killing them. Smooth and sophisticated, he was implicated in his first murder, that of a young American whose body was found on a beach in Pattaya, Thailand in 1975.

He ended up being linked to over 20 murders. His victims were strangled, beaten or burned. Sobhraj often used the passports of his male victims to travel to their next destination. The nickname “The Serpent”, the title of the series on Netflix, came precisely from his ability to assume other identities to escape Justice.

Sobhraj was arrested in India in 1976 after a French tourist was poisoned to death in a Delhi hotel. He spent 21 years in prison, with a brief break in 1986 when he escaped and was arrested again in the Indian coastal state of Goa.

Released in 1997, Sobhraj moved to Paris, but resurfaced in 2003 in Nepal, where he was spotted in the tourist district of Kathmandu and arrested. A local court sentenced him to life in prison the following year for killing American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. A decade later, he was also convicted of murdering Connie’s Canadian partner.

In 2008, while in prison, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas, 44 years his junior and the daughter of his lawyer.