Kathmandu: The fate of `Bikini killer`
Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj will be decided next month when
Nepal`s Supreme Court gives its final verdict in the
long-pending sensational murder case of an American backpacker
in 1975.
Sobhraj was convicted by the Kathmandu district court
in 2004 for the murder of American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich
in Nepal. The top court has fixed July 14 for giving its
ruling in the murder of the American tourist.
The date has been set by a division bench of Justices
Ram Kumar Prasad Shah and Gauri Dhakal following the
completion of the hearing on the case yesterday.
The bench has directed the defence lawyers and the
prosecutors to furnish their written replies by July 6,
according to the court officials.
Nicknamed the "Bikini killer" and "Serpent",
65-year-old Sobhraj has been accused of luring young women and
killing many of them.
Sobhraj, who is currently serving 20 years
imprisonment after being convicted in the three-decade old
murder case, has appealed to the Supreme Court against the
verdict. Sobhraj`s case has been pending in the Supreme Court
for more than half-a-decade.
It is alleged that Sobhraj escaped arrest in 1975
after committing murders of two foreign tourists, Bronzich and
Laurent Armound Carriere (Canadian).
According to the police, Sobhraj was arrested from a
Kathmandu casino in 2003 when he arrived here for the second
time in the cover of a French businessman. The second case
involving the murder of the Canadian tourist is pending in
Bhaktapur District Court against Sobhraj.
Sobhraj, who was earlier held in New Delhi`s Tihar
prison, was deported to France in 1997.
The trial has been splashed in the international media
after Sobhraj announced his engagement and then marriage,
while inside prison, to Nepali teenager Nihita Biswas in 2008.
Sobhraj fell in love with the Nepali beauty when she met him
to apply for a job as a translator.
PTI
