'Sobhraj, entirely unruffled, launched into a convoluted monologue, crammed with erudition, describing himself as a victim of dark forces conspiring to take his freedom.'. The story called to me long ago, no doubt, because I wondered whether, in their place, I could have been conned to death by Sobhraj too: In photographs from that time, he looked like a person I would've slept with in the 70slike several different people, in fact, whom I did sleep with in the 70s. Similarly, Sobhrajs first wife and daughter have fictional names in The Serpent to protect their identities. He exploited the times - the 1970s in the far east where western travellers went to explore the "hippie trail". He had passed himself off as an Israeli scholar, a Lebanese textile merchant, and a thousand other things while trawling southern Asia for tourist victims as a drug-and-rob man. The series stars Tahar Rahim (as Charles) and Jenna Coleman (as Marie-Andre Leclerc) in the lead roles. ", "Did she tell you I'm writing a book?" Sobhraj told us he also wanted to discuss flogging the rights to his life story to Mackenzie, 50, who has vowed to give away half her 50billion wealth after divorcing Amazon boss Bezos. It sounded like a horrible life for the monkey. Slight, though whatever weight he put on obviously went straight to his ass. Behind his fleshy lips, he had wildly irregular, jagged bottom teeth, vaguely suggesting the maw of a predatory amphibian. Waiters stood around aimlessly in the dining room like gigolos in an empty dance hall. In 1971, Sobhraj had been waiting for an international call at the O'Coqueiro restaurant in Goa when Zende, disguised as a tourist, busted him. Sobhraj has been held in a high-security prison in Nepal since 2003, when he was arrested on charges of murdering American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. Clarke and Neville interviewed Sobhraj in prison in Delhi,India, after the rights tohis life story were sold to publisher Random House. Chowdhurys fate is left open-ended, which is factual. Its so on the nose. During the 1970s and 1980s he used his knowledge of gems and of the backpacker routes to lure unsuspecting Westerners into his circle. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, 2023 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. Sobhraj has been very good about building a false narrative about the people hes alleged to have killed, Warlow says. He was released from jail in 1997 after the warrant for his extradition to Thailand ran out. , updated Marie-Andre Leclerc, who is played by Doctor Who actress Jenna Coleman, was arrested in IndiaalongsideSobhraj in 1976. Richard died four years ago and its now been more than 40 years since Bungles and Mishap, two amusingly naive youngsters, got to write a classic true crime book, about which in retrospect, I now feel enormous pride. Really? And yes, that was 100% as it happened., That was something Dominique told us, Testar adds. My book is going to be published in about one month. It was 1977 and my boyfriend and I were working as journalists in New York. When the first few students began falling where they stood, the others became alarmed and called the police. All rights reserved. Those hands had snapped necks.) Plates of Spanish peanuts fried in chilies, the only edible item on the menu, came free with the drinks. His face suggested a somewhat crumbling boulevard actor formerly noted for his beauty. His first jail sentence was for burglary in Paris in 1963. He was also called "theserpent" because of his ability to disguise himself following his escape from a prison in India in the mid-1980s, where he was serving 21 years on murder charges. He would drug them, kill them . Photo by REX USA. "Where are you staying in New Delhi?" A statue of Sobhraj, in his signature peaked cap, stands at the restaurant in Goa to this day. How much extra could mortgage repayments be, now the cash rate is 3.85 per cent? 'I am shocked,' said Sobhraj as he walked out of the courtroom in handcuffs. To the dismay of many people who tried to prevent it, Sobhraj was released from prison a year after I met him. Richard, who had already achieved notoriety in the UK with his anti-establishment Oz magazine, was offered a contract to write a book about Charles Sobhraj, a young French Vietnamese man who had just been arrested for murder after an international manhunt. "I walked up to their table and said 'you are Charles'", Madhukar Zende, the policeman who caught him in Goa, told The Indian Express newspaper in an interview published on Friday. He was later caught and jailed there until 1997. Tahar Rahim as Charles Sobhraj in The Serpent. After a speed binge I knocked myself out with Mekhong, a virulent whiskey said to contain 10 percent formaldehyde and rumored to cause brain damage. Along with Leclerc, he was snared in Delhi and jailed for the attempted robbery of a group of French students. But one afternoon, after three weeks of daylong visits, I got lucky: I had a toothache. Whenever he reaped a windfall from his trade, he instantly flew off to Corfu or Hong Kong and blew it all in a casino. He launched his own investigation and gained permission to enter Sobhraj's home, after the suspect had left for Malaysia. Convicts sentenced to life imprisonment in Nepal usually serve 20 years in jail. But I may have had the whole thing wrong from the start, anyway. In Bangkok, things had taken a grim turn. He walked me to a spot under a high rectangular window in the courthouse facade. ABC to rely on public interest defence against former soldier Heston Russell, Hollywood writers to strike as move to streaming upends TV business, Natascha Lechner died minutes after using frog poison in 'Kambo' vomiting ritual, inquest told, Confused by the 'sustainability' label on your favourite can of tuna? In 1986, two years before he was due for release in India, Sobhraj staged a party for guards, drugged them and escaped. I felt a little ashamed of our obsession with a crime story, but we had to keep going and we had to get it right. He made it very clear that he was there. We walked inside a ring of army personnel, with submachine guns pointed at both of us. Their reaction says less about HBOs series than a changing culture. They were two of many Western tourists Sobhraj had snuffed out on the so-called Hippie Trail. We walked over to the court, through the crowds, and up some stairs to a dim, boxy courtroom. Eager for me, her new biographer, to get the full effect of the Tihar ashram, she scribbled a laissez-passer to all four jails on some scrap paper. He was later adopted by his mother's new boyfriend, a French Army lieutenant stationed in French Indochina, who is thought to haveneglected him in favour of his own children withSobhraj's mother. On the Trail of the Serpent by Julie Clarke and Richard Neville is published by Vintage. In 1973 he escaped prison after an unsuccessful armed robbery by fleeing to Kabul where he first started fleecing tourists on the Hippie Trail, but was soon arrested again and fled again to Iran. When we flew out of Delhi I had never felt so relieved. This means that we may include adverts from us and third parties based on our knowledge of you. It was more a case of leaving stuff out., Here Warlow and Testar discuss whats fact and whats fiction in The Serpent., The series is based on interviews with Sobhraj just not by the producers, Neville and Clarkes interviews with Sobhraj, conducted while the killer was in prison in India, were essential to the writing of The Serpent, especially since the production team didnt want to involve Sobhraj directly. He was arrested days later in the Indian beach holiday state of Goa. He stood up with a great clanking of chains. These are some of the peopleSobhraj is believed to have killed in 1975 and 1976. At the time, Sobraj was accused of having killed two backpackers on Freak Street, south of the citys historic Durbar Square, where holiday-goers gathered in the 1970s. Sobhraj claimed that he returned to negotiate an arms deal between the Taliban and the CIA, but its been speculated that his hubris was so great that he thought the warrant had expired along with the one in Thailand. He tricked them into taking "anti-dysentery capsules," which many swallowed on the spot, becoming violently sick minutes later. This was Bedi. However, three days before he was set to leave Nepal, he brazenly recalled being arrested while eating dinner at the casino - yet boasted about still not being charged due to lack of evidence. Sobhraj was now in full flow, describing each murder in detail. ", "Yes, exactly. Fanatically incorruptible in a richly corrupt police force, she had been given numerous "punishment postings" to discourage her, but she applied such literal-minded zeal to her jobsordering state ministers' illegally parked cars towed away, for examplethat she became a national hero her bosses couldn't get rid of. An excited group of ladies arrived, some in pantsuits, some in saris, surrounding a short figure in blinding-white plus fours, with a butch haircut and a bunched fist of a face. Hunter Biden claims he's paid Lunden Roberts $750k - $20,000 a month - in child support Satellite pictures show 100ft-long Chinese 'submarine of the skies' military blimp at secret desert military base. "He looked different every time, wearing wigs, his face all made up. More often, now, they happen here in the United States. Sobhraj said: At that time I was doing something with the Americans in Pakistan for the CIA., Get weekly highlights from Mirror editor Alison Phillips direct to your email. Chowdhury moved in with Leclerc and Sobhraj, and the two men commenced murdering certain "guests." Like you. Sobhraj was expected to be taken from jail to the immigration department in the capital Kathmandu to complete his paperwork and enable him to return to France. If you were a backpacker in Southeast Asia in the 1970s, there was a chance that you could have run into Charles Sobhraj. After spending 21 years . At dinner parties with British and French expats who'd lived in Thailand since the Tet Offensive, I picked up more rumors about Sobhraj. She has two secretaries. "When I leave to work with Mother Teresa." Very expensive moment a rare Ferrari slams into a 4WD on the other side of the road and launches it into the air. I thought Sobhraj and Chowdhury must have taken a lot of speed. (Neville and Clarkes book was originally released in 1979, which means the interviews took place shortly after the events of the series. Sobhraj had made himself an object of passion to a Canadian medical secretary he met in Rhodes, Greecea woman named Marie-Andre Leclerc, who was vacationing with her fianc. The serial killer - who had murdered two in India - was caught drugging French tourists. The show was also given the nod of approval by the real NadineGires, played byMathilde Warnier, who helped build the case againstSobhraj. By Serial killer Charles Sobhraj would use his charm to lure in unsuspecting victims, a true crime author says. Those who resisted his money-making scams were poisoned. "You should go and satisfy your obscene curiosity," he told me, "and then get as far away from that person as possibleand never, ever have anything to do with him again.". Thats one of those extraordinary details that feels like Thats too far. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold ran amok at Columbine. He tells the Sunday Mirror: Im absolutely innocent in these cases. They were carefully planned and uncharacteristically inelegant. "The court has ordered that if there is no other reason to keep him in jail, he should be released and sent back to his country within 15 days," Supreme Courtspokesperson Bimal Paudel said. I recognized Sobhraj in a queue of plaintiffs, one by one approaching the bench of a bilious Sikh judge in a bright yellow turban who thoughtfully swigged from a bottle of Coca-Cola. 'But on a cold December day in 2003, two days before Christmas, his ingratiating self-aggrandizement was as disturbing as his outrage.'. In 1997, Sobhraj, then 52, walked free and returned to Paris for a comfortable life, cashing in on his infamy and even posing with a newspaper headlined on his release. Netflix. He was released from prison in 1997, when the 20-year arrest warrant issued by the Thai authorities had elapsed. The Nepalese had carefully preserved dated receipts for a rental car and blood evidence found in the trunk and proceeded to arrest him, fittingly enough, in a casino. Maybe tonight!" The total number of Sobhrajs victims remains unknown. My laissez-passer was inspected every morningwith the same doubtful scrutinyin a cavernous security buffer between two immense iron gates. He was jailed in India until 1997 when he returned to France. Nepal's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered his release from prison, citing his age. I lied about everything. It's a standard technique of sociopaths. He settled in Paris, where he was allegedly paid $5 million for his life story and began giving interviews for $6,000 a pop, at his favorite caf on the Champs-lyses. "The lawyer will show you." "What about Stephanie Parry? Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, France Takes Care in Handling The Serpent, Commentary: What Woody Allens defenders are really upset about, Review: Why everyones jumping on the bandwagon of Netflixs French hit, Lupin, Review: White House Plumbers reenacts the mishaps of Watergates operatives for laughs, Get ready for the 2023 Met Gala: Heres when, and how, to tune in live, Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon blasted at White House Correspondents dinner, Tom Jones review: PBS Masterpieces latest period drama is laid-back and enjoyable. "The lawyer told me you called him from a hotel in Channa Market.". Building that research to be as huge as possible so we could draw from it so we could draw these tiny, fine details in the story that become really important and be truthful about them and make sure were telling it accurately., A few of the people involved were made into composite characters for dramatic effect, one completely fictional character was added, and timelines were condensed at points. Who is Vanessa Hudson? Charles Sobhraj was a killer, by his own admission. If Charles was ever a fabulous stud, nobody's ever said so. But the liar says he was working as an arms dealer for the Taliban in Pakistan and passing information to Americas Central Intelligence Agency. She returned to Canada to die of cancer in 1984. But he was still under a 20-year arrest warrant in Thailand, where he was likely to face the death penalty for the 1975 murders. Its a useful fact and it plays into the mythology of the story, but another associate of Sobhraj from Bangkok, a German guy, disproved it. It didnt help that Sobhrajs creepy emissaries would arrive at all hours with handwritten missives. Witnesses offer conflicting accounts, Mars Voltas lead singer broke with Scientology and reunited with the band. In the sixth episode, Sobhraj drives Chowdhury to a deserted strip of land and abandons him, although its unclear whether that actually happened. I wanted to suggest this to the Bombay police, but since I was on speed myself, I had the paranoid thought that if I brought it up they might give me a drug test, right there in their office. Charles Sobhraj became somewhat of a self-made folk hero and heartthrob but was a man in a moral vacuum. This path stretched from Europe through southern Asia, trekked by Western dropouts as they smoked grass and connected with the locals. That kind of performance makes Sobhraj look . (The shows dialogue is imagined too.) But if I planned on speaking to Sobhraj, I could forget about it. Real life is infuriating, because it doesnt behave in the way stories do, says writer and producer Richard Warlow, who began working on the series in 2013 alongside director Tom Shankland. The drug helped the writing along. Sometimes he kept them sick for weeks, Leclerc administering a "medicinal drink" consisting of laxatives, ipecac, and Quaaludes, rendering them incontinent, nauseated, lethargic, and confused, while Sobhraj doctored their passports and used them to cross borders, spend their cash, and fence their valuables. The hotel desk clerk, alarmed by 20 or more people vomiting all over the dining room, called the police. Marie-Andre Leclerc was accused of complicity in the murders, namely those of Jean-Luc Salomon and Avoni Jacob. 12/23/22 AT 10:42 AM EST. He is known to have killed at least 12 people, but the true tally is believed to be at least double that number. Serial killer Charles 'The Serpent' Sobhraj released from Nepal prison after 20 years behind bars. We can make an arrangement but you must give me two services. After I am out. The case would become a sensation, involving trickery, drugs, gems, gun running, corruption, dramatic prison escapes and a glamorous female accomplice who was photographed wearing big sunglasses and holding a fluffy dog. And the other thing is, hes a compulsive liar, so whatever he had to tell us wouldnt have been true.. Below us, 2,000 prisoners sat in the lotus position, many festooned with smeary colored powder. Coleman told the Radio Times. Butthis time it backfired when the poison began working a lot faster than he expected. Before Bedi's arrival, Tihar had been known as the worst prison in India, which is saying something. I asked how Sobhraj was. The writer went on to say that the serial killer, then 58, was awaiting trial and concerned about saying anything that could incriminate him - but asked to see Tom again once he had spoken with his lawyer. Based on the real-life sins and actions of Charles Sobhraj, a French thief, fraudster, and serial killer, 'The Serpent' is an eight-part drama series that showcases how he was eventually caught and brought to justice. It was our connection with the so called hippy trail that had landed Richard the contract; the fact that crime reporting, and indeed the world of crime, was alien to us had seemed of no consequence. So much time separates the Bikini Killings from the present that the way he will finish up no longer illustrates the tendency of certain individuals to flog their pathology to the point of self-immolation. She would endanger her job if she let the press talk to him. "I'm happy and have great respect for our judiciary and Supreme Court," Sobhraj's mother-in-law Sakuntala Thapa told Reuters partner ANI after news of his release was announced. Most had been "lured" not by his sex appeal, or his oily patter, but by the prospect of getting expensive gemstones on the cheap. "Then the necessary process will be completed by the immigration officials to return him to his country.". Theres a version of this show where youre just watching Charles pulling incredibly evil s time and again for hours. Entirely by chance, the officer who showed up at the Vikram was the only policeman in India who could reliably identify Sobhraj, from the scar of an appendectomy performed years earlier in a prison hospital. And under my sleeves. Its also possible that he craved the spotlight at any cost. Who is Vanessa Hudson? He has never stood trial for thealleged murders in Thailand. Sobhraj, now in his mid-70s, has suffered health problems in recent years and is seeking to be released from jail. He is like me, with no use for bourgeois morality." I sat near the spot where Sobhraj had been seized, as tiny, iridescent lizards scrambled up and down the sage-green walls of the O'Coqueiro. I knew he was a cop right away.". On the shadowy veranda, Gines Viegas, the proprietor, plied me with rum and cokes while he drawled out tales of his years as a travel agent in Africa and South America. Im not guilty. Each day, the ranking officer assigned me a minder for the day, and I tried to bend things in favor of the youngest guards, who were the most relaxed and permissive, often abandoning me while they ambled off to smoke and chat with friends. He drugged and robbed tourists for money and their passports, which he refashioned to use himself.