BBC's (and now Netflix's) The Serpent opens with a title card that reads, "In 1997 an American news crew tracked Charles Sobhraj down to Paris where he was living as a free man." The limited . I dont want to say more about it. "Mention David Beckham in England, everybody knows. Charles Sobhraj is bundled into a police van in Delhi in 1997, shortly after his release from jail. "I don't think we need to go into all that," he said, as if they were merely tiresome details. Not for Charles Sobhraj, better known as the Serpent, the title of a new BBC drama series about his crimes and eventual capture. He escaped from three prisons in three different countries. I dont know, lets see after the publication of my bookThere could be a future Hindi movie. Death Stalks the Hippy trail! read one headline. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. We spoke for almost two hours, in which Sobhraj jumped back and forth between countries and decades, never showing the slightest regret for the devastation he had wrought or the lives he'd ruined. Moreover, when I was released from India, the Indian government had asked Nepal whether I was wanted. Picture: collage of promotional photos from BBC One and Netflix's The Serpent and Herman Knippenberg's personal collectionCredit: BBC / Mammoth Screen and Herman Knippenberg, See all episodes from The Outlook Podcast Archive, True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives. "I said, 'You're the serial killer.' I would see, she said, casually. The first thing he did when I knocked on the door was offer me an open bottle of Coke, which was also the way he had incapacitated many of his victims. In Afghanistan, he drugged his prison guard and disappeared, leaving his young wife in a cramped and dirty cell in Kabul prison. Forever enterprising, the first thing Sobhraj had done after his arrest was sell the rights to his life story to a Bangkok businessman, who sold them on to Random House, who asked Richard to immediately get to Delhi. Sobhraj was a nuisance for both the Nepalese and French, and neither wanted to afford him the opportunity for publicity. Mention Charles Sobhraj in India, everybody knows, north to south. Jaswant Singh told me he will discuss with the Cabinet. "He's too stupid for that. "Sobhraj took her to the border of France and Switzerland when she came back for him," said Dhondy, "and forced her to sell some land she had inherited. The Serpent is on BBC1. He used to be represented by Jacques Vergs, the "devil's advocate", who has defended every tyrant and war criminal from Klaus Barbie to Slobodan Milosevic. Charles Sobhraj, pictured in 1997, the year he was released after 21 years in a New Delhi jail. On the run from the Indian police, Sobhraj and Compagnon sent their daughter back to Paris and moved on to Afghanistan, where they were soon imprisoned for car theft and not paying an hotel bill. He met her when he was 24 and fresh out of prison in Paris. Ripley has been described as suave, agreeable, and utterly immoral, and those adjectives were not out of place for Sobhraj. When he left prison, the statute of limitations on his arrest was up. In private, we called ourselves Bungles and Mishap, News Sleuths. It didnt help that Sobhrajs creepy emissaries would arrive at all hours with handwritten missives. "He took me aside and said this is too big a story for the Spectator.". So not Nepali handicrafts, after all. Some years after that I read that he had been visited by a hired assassin in prison, who then attempted to murder one of his fellow inmates in debt to some bigwig on the outside. Although they are no longer in contact, Sobhraj appears to have forgiven Dhondy, after the author was quoted as saying the killer's conviction in Nepal was unsound. His mother then married an occupying French soldier who, suffering from PTSD, returned to France with his young family. "Think about the money," he said. By signing up, I agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive emails from POPSUGAR. He has made a continual fuss about his conviction, appealing to everyone from the UN downwards, and is demanding 7m (5.8) compensation for unlawful imprisonment. He called me at my Channel 4 office in Charlotte Street in 1997. His first killing had been of a taxi driver in Pakistan several years before, but between October 1975 and March 1976 he is believed to have committed 11 more murders, nearly all of them young backpackers. He said, 'We're here to set up an antique furniture shop. Like some bizarre real-life combination of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley and Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter, he was handsome, charming and utterly without scruple. Photograph: Krishnan Guruswamy/AP The Observer TV crime drama Speaking with the Serpent: my. Please select the topics you're interested in: Would you like to turn on POPSUGAR desktop notifications to get breaking news ASAP? Charles Sobhraj exclusive interview: 'I am going straight back to France to my family I hope to live for many years to come' With the master of guile set to take his flight to freedom at age 78, the world may finally get to hear from the man himself - the chronicles, claims and conspiracy theories that make up Charles Sobhraj. "I risked my life for the war on terror," he protested, a little improbably, claiming that the CIA abandoned him when he was arrested. 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. He actually received time for drugging and trying to rob a group of French engineering students in India but wasn't convicted for any murders prior to 1997. I wanted to know what he thought about his past deeds. We went around and around the subject, and it became clear that he was more interested in portraying himself as a victim: of western imperialism, a dysfunctional childhood, racism and institutionalisation. His pattern is to befriend, then drug and rob, or drug and murder, or manipulate and betray' (Biographer Richard Neville). "For a meeting with a major Chinese criminal," he said, matter-of-factly, within earshot of a prison guard. Often with the former nurse Leclercs help, he drugged them, led them to believe they had contracted a tropical bug, and prevented them from leaving his apartments on the top floor of Kanit House in Bangkok. Frenchman. The hit TV show The Serpent is available now on BBC iPlayer and Netflix. You were arrested in Nepal in 2003. Finally we did. I hope to live for many years to come. Suddenly Sobhraj emerged from a door in the corner. Prince Charles then flew to Palm Beach, Florida in which he met Governor Bob Graham. The couple married when Sobhraj was released and embarked on an epic crime spree across Europe and Asia, before settling in Mumbai with a newborn child and a profitable trade in stolen cars. Pretty good. He told me in Paris that he had regrets but he wouldnt say what they were. (In case those names don't sound familiar, they're renamed Willem and Helena in the series.) Now his main lawyer is Isabelle Coutant-Peyne, who is married to the renowned international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal. [17] [13] Imprisonment in Nepal [ edit] Sobhraj retired to a comfortable life in suburban Paris. It was 1977 and my boyfriend and I were working as journalists in New York. Tahar Rahim as Charles Sobhraj in The Serpent. Watch. Linked with at least ten sadistic murders, Charles Sobhraj is a narcissistic pedlar of fantasies who has spent his life on the run or in prison across Southeast Asia, France and the. With BBC drama The Serpent now streaming on Netflix in the US, Nige Tassell reveals the story of the brazen career criminal who graduated from petty theft to cold-blooded murder. Simply put, the conditions in Nepali jails are primitive, awful. It will be a bestseller. We then continued our all-consuming research into the murders. . So, have things worked according to plan? Following that meeting, and my direct talk with Jaswant Singh, I contacted people in the Harkat ul Ansar, Masoods party then. In any case, it requires no great intellect to kill someone. Other times his gambling debts would lead him to take excessive risks. In mid-70s Bangkok, Dutchman Herman Knippenberg was tasked with finding two missing travellers. Instead it was left to a junior Dutch diplomat looking for the missing Dutch couple, Henk Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker, who became Sobhrajs nemesis. After a special plea to the prison minister, two meetings with the prison governor, three body searches and an armed escort, I entered the inner sanctum of the prison, which is run by the prisoners. We sat in a booth, the two men on either side of me. Street vendor makes dosa in the form of a cat, Dangal: Two reptiles fight against each other, IFS officer shares video, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez give Red Bull 1-2 pole for Bahrain GP, Womens Premier League: Boundary length to be a maximum of 60 metres, 5 metres less than the distance at Womens T20 World Cup, Retired Sania Mirza to play exhibition match in hometown, Arsenal seal last-gasp win in thriller, Chelsea win, Wolves stun Tottenham, How persistent cold and cough triggered a career in table tennis for Fu Yu, Portugals 44-year-old pro, PM Modi to attend swearing-in ceremonies of Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura governments, Jemimah Rodrigues parents watched her getting picked in WPL auction over video call from South Africa, After High Court order, Haryana sarpanches removed from Chandigarh-Panchkula border, ED presses for declaring Devas CEO a fugitive offender in case over failed 2005 deal with ISRO, Santosh Trophy becomes first domestic tournament to feature VAR, Myanmar teak trade: Highly prized, highly dodgy, Deadline ends to register for higher pension, over 8000 EPS members apply, Oil leak contained in Tamil Nadu coast, fishermen demand removal of pipeline, Govt not in crazy rush to sell everything: FM Sitharaman, Booked for provocative remarks, cleric issues apology, We consider infra as driving force of economy: PM. His motto was: "When you feel the heat, go to the kitchen", and there is little question that he thrived in stressful situations. Read about our approach to external linking. When he came out they embarked on a manic crime spree across Europe and Asia. What are your plans after release from jail? We needed our little jokes because actually we were a long way out of our depth. "But I was also working for the CIA," he added, as I'm still trying to put the pieces together. After 20 years in a New Delhi jail, the man who had confessed to . After all, I cannot now face trial . ", Biswas says she is no longer able to visit her husband owing to pressure from the authorities. The idea that the Americans would make such provisions for a serial killer seems far-fetched, to say the least, although it's fair to say that in the past they have done business with people who are even more disreputable than Sobhraj. By chance, shortly after the call, a couple of documentary makers got in touch with me. Ciencia y Tecnologa. Referencing the title card, Anthony wrote, "The ABC team were not the only ones back then to speak to Sobhraj, who was suspected of committing at least 12 murders. Afterwards, he would steal their belongings and identities, often travelling the world on their passports and money. As The Serpent shows, Bangkok in 1976 was a place where anyone with the right connections and spare cash could evade unwanted police attention. A Bollywood film (Main Aur Charles) has been made on you. Nepal to release The Serpent serial killer Charles Sobhraj, Onthe Trail of The Serpent: the story behind the true crime classic, TheSerpent: a slow-burn TV success that's more than a killer thriller, TVtonight: Charles Sobhraj's life of crime, 'I saw him as an animal': Tahar Rahim on playing a real-life serial killer. Then I didnt hear of him for six years, until I read that he had been arrested in Kathmandu for the murders of a Canadian called Laurent Carrire and an American Connie Jo Bronzich, who had been killed in December 1975. She got about 40,000. A bright but delinquent teenager, he was irresistibly drawn to crime car theft, street muggings, and then holding up housewives with a gun. He denied the murders, fed a media frenzy, and eventually went to trial. Investigators believe that Sobhraj killed at least a dozen people, including young travelers, whom he would drug and trap in Kanit House in Bangkok. In the interview, Sobhraj spoke about his arrest from a casino in Nepal in 2003, his stint in Delhis Tihar Jail between 1976 and 1997, and the book and movie releases that he was part of then. The Serpent takes a close look at the year 1976, when a young Dutch diplomat named Herman Knippenberg followed the murders of Henk Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker in Thailand. I still believed if at that time the government had accepted the suggestion of six months (that Masood would be released in six months), most probably, I could have persuaded Harkat ul Ansar to accept it. He was also a student of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's "will to power". The ABC team were not the only ones back then to speak to Sobhraj, who was suspected of committing at least 12 murders. There seems little doubt that had the same quality of evidence produced in the Kathmandu court been put to a judge and jury in Britain, the case would have been dismissed. Our writer recalls his bizarre meetings with a charmer and psychopath, At the beginning of The Serpent, the new BBC drama series based on the exploits of a real-life serial killer, a title page declares: In 1997 an American TV crew tracked Charles Sobhraj down to Paris where he was living as a free man.. The pair struck up what Dhondy describes as an "acquaintanceship", as the commissioning editor was intrigued to see where the story might lead. So his greatest ever prison escape was foiled long before it could take off. Sobhraj did not settle in his new home and twice stowed away on ships heading to Africa. But like so many women who were to follow, she had fallen under his spell. We're going to the launder the money through the antiques job. There was a narcissism about him, perhaps best captured in a photograph of him that police found in which he is lying naked on a bed, proudly displaying an erection for the camera. You have now crossed 70 years of age. He had taken whatever money he could get from his previous wives, one of whom remained perversely loyal. "He's not a revenge killer," says Dhondy. I was 23 and Richard Neville, who later became my husband, was 33. Chowdury, the only other person who could shed light on why petty theft escalated to brutal murder, disappeared in 1976 after travelling with Sobhraj to Malaysia. 1 day ago, by Victoria Edel But is the opening interview in the limited series based on actual events? Moi, le Serpent Charles Sobhraj Babelio . Eventually word got round that he was Charles Sobhraj, so one of my staff asked his name and he said, 'Sob.'" I didnt commit any offence in Nepal so I didnt apprehend any problems. Its a bottomless pit. A foreign diplomat told me that the French embassy made no secret of its arrangement with Kathamandu Central Jail, in which the two institutions referred potential visitors back and forth to each other until they gave up.