KATMANDU: A notorious French criminal who earned the nickname “bikini killer” for a string of murders throughout Asia in the 1970s, was in a Nepali hospital Friday, where he is expected to undergo open heart surgery, sources said.
Charles Sobhraj, 73, who is currently serving a life sentence, was taken to hospital for tests, his lawyer and mother-in-law Sakuntala Thapa told AFP.
The aging conman has been implicated in more than 20 killings, earning worldwide notoriety for a series of poisonings and robberies of backpackers across Asia in the 60s and 70s.
He needs to have one of the valves in his heart replaced, said Jyotendra Sharma, director of Sahid Gangalal National Heart Center, where the surgery will take place.
Senior police officer Janak Bahadur Shahi told AFP that Sobhraj will remain in hospital until after the surgery, which other sources said is expected to take place next week.
“Sobhraj has been admitted to the hospital for the surgery. The date for the operation is yet to be fixed,” said Shahi.
Sobhraj was taken to hospital in late May after suffering a heart attack and was diagnosed with a weak valve that needed to be corrected through surgery.
His lawyer said that Sobhraj wanted to return to France for the surgery — a plea that he also made in a rare telephone interview with the Indian Express newspaper earlier this week.
But prison doctor Kedar Narshingh KC said he thought Sobhraj, who also earned the sobriquet “The Serpent” for his repeated identity thefts and escapes from justice, was angling to get released from jail early.
“He is spreading rumors despite our intensive care and treatment. It is suspicious and could be a ploy to get released from the jail,” said the doctor.
The French embassy in Katmandu told AFP there were “no ongoing discussions regarding the transfer of Sobhraj to France” for treatment or to serve the remainder of his sentence.
Sobhraj — a French citizen of Vietnamese and Indian parentage — was sentenced by a Nepal court in 2004 for the killing of US tourist Connie Joe Bronzich in 1975.
It was the first time he had been convicted of murder, despite being linked to a string of killings. Two of his victims were found wearing only bikinis.
The law first caught up with him in India in 1976, when he was jailed for culpable homicide — a lesser charge than murder — for poisoning a French tourist and killing an Israeli man.
He spent 21 years in jail in India’s capital with a brief 22-day break in 1986 when he escaped by reportedly offering the guards cakes, cookies and grapes laced with sleeping pills.
Sobhraj claimed that the jailbreak was a well-crafted plan to avoid extradition to Thailand where he would have faced the death penalty for the murder of an American woman in the mid-seventies.
India’s snail-paced judiciary took years to begin prosecution against him for jailbreak and in 1995 the extradition warrant from Thailand expired. He was finally released in 1997.
In 2014, he was handed a second life sentence in Nepal for the killing of Canadian backpacker Laurent Carriere.
While in jail in Nepal, Sobhraj married his lawyer’s daughter, Nihita Biswas, who is 22 years his junior.
Biswas has herself courted notoriety, appearing in India’s hugely popular reality television show “Bigg Boss” — a spin off of the global “Big Brother” franchise — in 2011.
French ‘bikini killer’ to have heart surgery in Nepal
French ‘bikini killer’ to have heart surgery in Nepal
Zelensky says Ukrainian air force needs to improve as Russian drone barrages take a toll
- Zelensky said Friday he had discussed with his defense minister and the air force commander what new air defense measures Ukraine needs to counter the Russian barrages
- Russia fired 328 drones and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight and in the early morning
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday described the performance of the air force in parts of the country as “unsatisfactory,” and said that steps are being taken to improve the response to large-scale Russian drone barrages of civilian areas.
The repeated Russian aerial assaults have in recent months focused on Ukraine’s power grid, causing blackouts and disrupting the heating and water supply for families during a bitterly cold winter.
With the war about to enter its fifth year later this month following Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor, there is no sign of a breakthrough in US-led peace efforts following the latest talks this week.
Further US-brokered meetings between Russian and Ukrainian delegations are planned “in the near future, likely in the United States,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky said Friday he had discussed with his defense minister and the air force commander what new air defense measures Ukraine needs to counter the Russian barrages. He didn’t elaborate on what would be done.
Russia fired 328 drones and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight and in the early morning, the air force said, claiming that air defenses shot down 297 drones.
One person was killed and two others were injured in an overnight Russian attack using drones and powerful glide bombs on the central Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Hanzha.
A Russian aerial attack on the southern Zaporizhzhia region during early daylight hours injured eight people and damaged 18 apartment blocks, according to regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov.
A dog shelter in the regional capital was also struck, killing 13 dogs, Zaporizhzhia City Council Secretary Rehina Kharchenko said.
Some dogs were rushed to a veterinary clinic, but they could not be saved, she said. Seven other animals were injured and are receiving treatment.
Amid icy conditions in Kyiv, more than 1,200 residential buildings in multiple districts of the capital have had no heating for days due to the Russian bombardment of the power grid, according to Zelensky.
The UK defense ministry said Friday that Ukraine’s electricity network “is experiencing its most acute crisis of the winter.”
Mykola Tromza, an 81-year-old pensioner in Kyiv, said he has had his power restored, but recently went without heating and water at home for a week.
“I touched my nose and by God, it was like an icicle,” Tromza said. He said he ran up and down to keep warm.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 38 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 26 over the Bryansk region.
Bryansk Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said the attack briefly cut power to several villages in the region.
Another Ukrainian nighttime strike damaged power facilities in the Russian city of Belgorod, disrupting electricity distribution, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
Local reports said that Ukrainian missiles hit a power plant and an electrical substation, cutting power to parts of the city.
Fierce fighting has also continued on the front line despite the frigid temperatures.
Ukraine’s Commander in Chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said the front line now measures about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) in length along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.
The increasing technological improvements to drones on both sides mean that the so-called “kill zone” where troops are in greatest danger is now up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) deep, he told reporters on Thursday in comments embargoed until Friday.
