By Antony Paone and Richard Lough

PARIS (Reuters) – Charles Sobhraj, a convicted murderer 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 Thailand’s “bikini killer” and “the snake” for his escape from police, citing health issues and advanced age.

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

“He’s fine, he’s a free man,” Sobhraj’s lawyer, 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 charged with the murder of American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. He was later convicted of the murder of Bronzich’s Canadian friend, Laurent Carriere , and served 19 years of a 20-year prison sentence.

He is also suspected of several murders, including in Thailand, where police say he killed six women in the 1970s, some of whom washed up dead 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 French news agency AFP on 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 about whether Sobhraj could face criminal charges in France.