charles sobhraj interview bbc 1997

Like Patricia Highsmiths Tom Ripley, he assumed different identities, using stolen passports and creating a trail of havoc wherever he went. Now 76 years old, he is reportedly in poor health while serving a life sentence in Nepal. "'This is Charles Sobhraj,'" said Dhondy with pitch-perfect mimicry. You met Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar while in Tihar Jail. They typically have a background in crime and they tend to select their victims from a particular social group or demographic. So, have things worked according to plan? There was also the small matter of Yousuf Ansari, a local media baron who shared the same block in the prison with Sobhraj. We sat in a booth, the two men on either side of me. The filmmaker got a researcher- to look into it and they sent the findings to Sobhraj. Its prison administration? 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. Remember what happened in 1994A Pakistani outfit in Kashmir that called themselves Al Faran kidnapped six foreigners, decapitated one of them, asking for Masoods release. Sobhraj wanted payment for the interview but I refused and, to my surprise, he agreed to talk. "I risked my life for the war on terror," he protested, a little improbably, claiming that the CIA abandoned him when he was arrested. In stressful situations he remains calm and plausible, regardless of what lies he tells. "But I don't feel it. In 1975, when the Nepal police raided Sobhraj's hastily abandoned hotel room after Bronzich's body was discovered, among the few items they found was a copy of Nietzsche's Beyond Good And Evil. 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. According to Sobhraj, two Arabs, probably Iraqis, contacted him from Bahrain. One wonders, why did you take the risk of returning to Nepal where you were a wanted man? It was as if it was just business, being a serial killer, just another role in the postmodern world of image management. It was like a personal motto. Then he and Compagnon were imprisoned in Afghanistan. But the very same day he was arrested for car theft and served eight months back inside. 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. His pattern is to befriend, then drug and rob, or drug and murder, or manipulate and betray' (Biographer Richard Neville). This may be just as well because there is a law in Nepal that says when prisoners reach the age 70 their sentence is cut in half. It was a little playful test, and one I politely turned down. By chance, shortly after the call, a couple of documentary makers got in touch with me. He went on to explain that he had been working as an arms dealer to, among others, the Taliban, courtesy of an introduction from the Islamist terrorist leader Masood Azhar, a friend from his days in Tihar prison. At first, he sent an envoy to meet me in Paris. But my guess is that hes biding his time, thinking out his next move.. Sobhraj denied all knowledge of the plot, but the prison authorities claimed that the gunman had visited him 21 times in the preceding months. He was jailed in India again for a period during which, according to CNN, the time where he could be tried for. You even visited a casino. He even denied meeting a number of his victims when I raised their names, although there were witness statements placing them in his apartment. The hit TV show The Serpent is available now on BBC iPlayer and Netflix. The monarchy never recovered, and under the added pressure of a Maoist insurgency, Nepal was declared a republic in 2008. Will MS Dhoni pass the baton to Ben Stokes in what could be his final season for CSK? Many sleep on the ground under the sky. He had been captured in 1976 while drugging 60 French engineering students in Delhi. "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. And then we pulled up at a cheap brasserie on some kind of industrial estate. 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. For his part, Johnson says that he "clearly remembers making a clear decision not to proceed". Whatever life he touches, he wrecks. Death Stalks the Hippy trail! read one headline. I dont want to say more about that its a private matter. All of which meant that in 1997 he returned to Paris, where I went to interview him for the Observer. The reporter says, "There are those who would say you got away with it." Chowdhury disappeared after a trip to Malaysia with Sobhraj and has never been seen again. They, of course, refused to release the passengers but I succeeded in getting an undertaking from them that for 11 days, they would not harm the passengers, but after that, they would start executing. He looked a curiously slight figure, his skin remarkably smooth, even youthful, given that hed spent the past two decades in an Indian jail. Neville, who is now dead, told me from Australia that his wife was anxious that Sobhraj was at large. You must be thirsty, he said, and held out an already opened bottle of Coke. He met her when he was 24 and fresh out of prison in Paris. . Jenna Coleman, as Marie-Andre Leclerc, with Rahim in The Serpent. Sobhraj managed to break out of prison by drugging a guard and then returned to France to kidnap his own daughter. Leclerc, who is played by Jenna Coleman in the BBC series, was imprisoned and died of cancer. He said, 'We're here to set up an antique furniture shop. Settling in Paris, Sobhraj was allegedly paid $5 million for his life story and reportedly gave interviews for $6,000 each. Several times when different police forces had him within their grasp, he coolly assumed the identity of another person - usually one of his victims - and talked his way out. ", Biswas says she is no longer able to visit her husband owing to pressure from the authorities. Get the daily inside scoop right in your inbox. Of all the places to go, why did he travel to the one country where there were outstanding arrest warrants for him? Moreover, when I was released from India, the Indian government had asked Nepal whether I was wanted. He told Neville that they were involved in drug dealing and he was working for a cartel, but this was nonsense. In an astonishing interview from his cell in Nepal, Charles Sobhraj says he wants Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson and the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to bankroll a movie. He had taken whatever money he could get from his previous wives, one of whom remained perversely loyal. Even bad deeds with good intentions can be good deeds.". Later, he realised that the confession might prove problematic and denied everything he told Neville about the murders. 2 April 2021 by Stacey Nguyen. I asked Biswas how she would feel if she discovered that her husband was indeed a killer. I was to leave but someone warned me to be careful, saying Nepal was then facing a Maoist insurgency and the police and courts didnt respect any law or rules. Here's What We Know, Are the "Daisy Jones & The Six" Cast Really Singing in the Show? Sobhraj conformed to many but not all of these characteristics. His name was Charles Sobhraj, better known as 'The Serpent'. He became known as the Bikini Killer after the swimsuit one of his victims was wearing when she was discovered. He analysed character according to a system devised by the French psychologist Rene Le Senne, a method he used to impose himself on the gullible. Now you can ask your questions.. So much so, I came on a business visa as an assistant producer for a French production company, Gentleman Films Prod. Sobhraj is now serving a life sentence in a Nepalese jail for killing two tourists in 1975. Are you part of any more film or book projects? Everyone has good and bad sides. So will you return to France or spend time as a free man with your family in Nepal? I too made the journey to Paris and managed to arrange an interview for the Observer with the Vietnamese-Indian Frenchman." But he wasn't interested in settling any scores. This, then, was the man outside whose hotel room I stood on a warm spring day in Paris in 1997. She told me that she didnt believe her husband was a killer, but I asked what she would think if she was presented with irrefutable evidence. Afterwards, he would steal their belongings and identities, often travelling the world on their passports and money. A couple of days after my report to Jaswant Singh, they called me and said they were sitting with Masood and asked me to talk to him and try to convince him to order his people to release the passengers. They were working on serious matters: politics, saving the world. What are your plans after release from jail? He was also a student of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's "will to power". 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. . (Did we really have to shake hands with him? She got about 40,000. 2 weeks ago, by Eden Arielle Gordon Sobhraj described Dhondy as a "petty middleman", while Dhondy called the threat to sue him "extortion and blackmail". 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. A former commissioning editor at Channel 4, he is now a playwright, novelist and documentary maker. "I told him what I knew, that the Russians said that they had an isotope that could act as a trigger for nuclear bombs. In resisting the overtures of Sobhraj, he explained, they triggered his childhood preoccupation with being rejected.. When he left prison, the statute of limitations on his arrest was up. He took it, got into the car, drove to Holland and gambled it all away. The petition dragged on for months and finally, on August 10 (2016), the court directed the government to increase the daily food allowance. This is an interview of Charles being sarcastic about his murders Show more Show more Tahar Rahim on Why He'd Meet with the Real Serial Killer He Played in 'The Serpent' TheEllenShow 135K views. "He took me aside and said this is too big a story for the Spectator.". But he managed to avoid conviction for either of the killings, and instead received a 12-year sentence for the attempted robbery of the students. They had just had a daughter, who was sent back to live with Compagnons parents in France. I had never been much interested in serial killers but I happened to read Richard Nevilles and Julie Clarkes extraordinary account of the killings, The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj, just before Sobhrajs release was announced. So his greatest ever prison escape was foiled long before it could take off. A week after I published a damning profile, Sobhraj called me at the Observer office. The door opened and he beckoned me in. You have spent time in Tihar Jail as well. For example, when he was cornered by police in Nepal in 1975 he assumed the identity of a Dutch teacher he had already killed in Bangkok, and was able to talk himself out of arrest. (Credit: Charles Sobhraj), Charles Sobhraj exclusive interview: I am going straight back to France to my family I hope to live for many years to come, An Express Investigation Part Four | Compensatory afforestation neither compensates nor forest: 60% funds unused, An Express Investigation Part Three: Red flags, Indias green certification under cloud, Conflict Wood: Under sanctions, prized Myanmar teak finds its way to US, EU markets via India, Recalling the life and crimes of Bikini killer Charles Sobhraj, A brash fellow: retired cop who arrested Sobhraj recalls how he nabbed him at a Goa restaurant. But his first and abiding love was Chantal Compagnon, a French woman from a deeply conservative background. Towards the end, when he could perhaps sense my scepticism about the story he had told me, he insisted that I speak to the writer and filmmaker Farrukh Dhondy. 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. ", Dhondy repeated the details that Sobhraj had told me in Kathmandu, the difference being that he had learned of them before Sobhraj went to prison. "He's an old friend of mine," she said, "and he admitted it was all a lie. He talked of making money from his story, whose financial worth he lavishly -overvalued, and he also mentioned ambitions in film. The Serpent starts on BBC One, 9pm, New Years Day, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Sobhraj took Johnson's advice and went to the Telegraph, but while he was still in talks with that paper, he went off to Nepal. But unfortunately for political historians, Sobhraj wasn't present. ", I asked him in Paris about the power he held over those who came under his influence. Knippenberg has his own theory. I changed the topic and asked about Chantal Compagnon. He promised her that he was a reformed character and they got engaged, only for him to go back to prison for car theft. I had last seen Sobhraj in 1997, just after he was released from two decades in an Indian prison. The limited series then dives into a chilling 1997 interview with Sobhraj, who's played by Tahar Rahim. When captured, he feigned appendicitis and escaped from hospital. The only certainty is that the Serpent will not slip away to a quiet retirement in the French countryside. It's a front for selling arms. I feel 30!" As she would later write from her prison cell: I swore to myself to try all means to make him love me, but little by little I became his slave.. The couple soon split up and Sobhraj lived with his mother and her new boyfriend, a French soldier. His mother then married an occupying French soldier who, suffering from PTSD, returned to France with his young family. He was indeed released in 1997 after spending two decades in an Indian prison. He told me he was about to be released. My philosophy in life is that we are masters of our own destiny and responsible for our own actions.. And such was the richly implausible nature of his exploits that Sobhraj generated his own impressive literary testaments. He told me that he's been thinking of me recently because he's looking for someone to ghost his autobiography. He twice tried to return to Vietnam by stowing away on a ship - once he got as far as Djibouti before being discovered and sent back to France. "I'm looking for a literary agent," he told me. "He finds himself not famous, whereas in prison he's a somebody. 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 subcontinent. Michaela Jae Rodriguez put on a very leggy display at the 2023 Film Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, California, on Saturday. Sobhraj's other main partner in crime was Ajay Chowdhury, an Indian man with whom he carried out the most brutal murders. A Bollywood film (Main Aur Charles) has been made on you. After 20 years in a New Delhi jail, the man who had confessed to . When he had been in prison in India, women threw themselves at him, and he dropped each one as the next showed her face. He finds himself not famous, whereas in prison hes a somebody.. 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. 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. He called a friend, an ageing French-Vietnamese character whom he treated as a manservant-cum-bodyguard. We met at his home in south London, where he spoke about first meeting Sobhraj. BBC primetime drama has moved into the true-crime genre with the release of The Serpent, an eight-part thriller telling the real-life story of the mass murderer, Charles Sobhraj. The chilling evidence he uncovered put Sobhraj behind bars with a life sentence. He was staying in a tiny room at the Lutetia, the Left Bank hotel that was requisitioned by the Nazi secret service during the war. He was given a life sentence in 1999 for taking an art teacher hostage in prison. It's debatable whether or not Sobhraj is a psychopath - he certainly doesn't seem constrained by an overdeveloped sense of empathy - but he is clearly not stupid, despite his prison record. Perhaps it's true. We were both having nightmares that Sobhraj was chasing us, or suddenly appearing in our room. Nepal deporta a Francia al asesino serial Charles Sobhraj. He didnt seem dangerous to me, but then he didnt seem dangerous to those he killed, either. You are known to have been in touch with American intelligence agencies even from Kathmandu Jail. "He knows everything," he said. It was a psychological test, the first of several that afternoon. 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. "The charges are rubbish," he complained in 2004. Hes not responsible. , Awesome, Youre All Set! For all the moral grandeur of those words, at 75 he has spent more than half his life in prison. He wore a playful but challenging smile as I politely declined his offer. After he was released in 1997, he became a shameless media star, charging journalists for interviews. With an obedient Indian accomplice called Ajay Chowdhury, he murdered them in a variety of fashions, including in one case setting fire to a young Dutch couple while they were still alive. "I was still in love with Chantal, but I was with my Chinese wife who was pregnant, so I told Chantal, 'I can't be with you.'". It's a rough-and-ready place, low on elegance, but with a lively local clientele who tend to shout a lot around the gaming tables, and a posse of security muscle stationed on the floor, ready to settle disputes. In early 2013 I entered Kathmandu prison, the only journalist to get access to him after the attempted murder. He discovered the couple were victims of serial killer Charles Sobhraj. In July 1976 Sobhraj was on the run in India, wanted for several murders in Thailand and two in Nepal. It was 1977 and my boyfriend and I were working as journalists in New York. Charles Sobhraj was re-captured on April 6, 1986 drinking beer in a resort bar. 2 weeks ago, by Joely Chilcott With the single exception of his confessions to Neville, which he later retracted, he has always held to the legal argument that, as hed not been found guilty of any murders, it meant he hadnt committed any murders. "Mention David Beckham in England, everybody knows. IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. Death Stalks the Hippy trail! read one headline. I would see, she said, casually. Suddenly Sobhraj emerged from a door in the corner. Its OK. Are you in contact with Indian intelligence agencies? And Sobhraj was not unaware of his magnetic appeal. (In case those names don't sound familiar, they're renamed Willem and Helena in the series.) Sobhraj did not settle in his new home and twice stowed away on ships heading to Africa. It's a dusty, noisy place, like a cross between a bazaar and a dilapidated fort. The authorities were mystified by the incorrigible recidivist who was in and out of reform school and prison during his teens. He spoke about his meetings with Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, about the long conversations with the late Jaswant Singh, then foreign minister and the man who finally escorted the terrorists to Kandahar; of the undertaking he secured from Masoods party that the hostages wont be harmed. He asked Dhondy to investigate the availability of hot-air balloons. "I was looking to set up a heroin deal on behalf of the Taliban.". When I met him in Paris he boasted of his exploits in Tihar prison in New Delhi. Only intellectuals." "He can't deal with the outside world," said Dhondy. To avoid that outcome, he escaped from prison and then allowed himself to be caught and sentenced to a term that would bring him up to 20 years - the statute of limitations on his Thai arrest warrant. The child of an affair between an Indian businessman-tailor and one of his Vietnamese shop assistants, Sobhraj (played in the BBC drama by French actor Tahar Rahim) had grown up in Saigon during the Vietnamese war of independence from France. She also became his accomplice in theft and murder and ended up in an Indian prison, and died of cancer four years after her release. Subs offer. I hope to live for many years to come', Charles Sobhraj (left); his cell in a Kathmandu prison in 2016. "He wrote back asking if it could fit into two suitcases. The Taliban needed to sell heroin to buy arms and Sobhraj had contacts with the Triads, who were keen to buy heroin, so he offered to represent the Taliban in a meeting in Nepal. Sobhraj was released in 1997 and returned to Paris, where he lived an ostentatious life, charging . His motto was: 'When you feel the heat, go to the kitchen,' and he certainly thrived in stressful situations. He is obsessed with preventing anyone from exploiting his life for financial gain and threatened to sue the writer. Glaring injustices and abuse of power are a conspicuous part of everyday life, so it was not particularly shocking that a famous serial killer wanted for two murders in Nepal was gambling openly at the capital's main casino. 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.. 1 day ago. I am going straight back to France to my family. When he came out they embarked on a manic crime spree across Europe and Asia. "Think about the money," he said. It will be a bestseller. Four days after the Himalayan Times ran its story, deputy superintendent Ganesh arrested Sobhraj at the Casino Royale. 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." However, he broke out of prison and faced another decade in jail after he was caught. Here's the Deal, The Hidden Meaning Behind the Hair Colours in "Daisy Jones & The Six", Idris Elba and Wife Sabrina are all Smiles at the Luther Film Premiere, The "Stranger Things" Prequel Stage Play Dives Deep Into Vecna's Origin Story, "Daisy Jones & the Six" Takes Inspiration From a Famous Real-Life Rock Band, Can't Wait For "Daisy Jones & The Six"? 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. "But it was too hot. 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. He became a famous outlaw in India. IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. But someone leaked to the media my presence in Kathmandu and it hit the front pages. As Neville noted: "Whatever life he touches, he wrecks. What skills could he employ in France and who would employ him? It was from prison that Sobhraj phoned me out of the blue in 2016. GQ talks to the serial killer who beguiled the delusional and needy and wrecked the lives of almost everyone he knew - and who may be about to be released from Nepalese jail. Charles Sobhraj, a convicted killer who police say is responsible for a string of murders in the 1970s and '80s, including that of a Canadian, was released from a Nepal prison on Friday after. It's about a serial killer who is arrested in Nepal for a couple of murders that took place years before. Sometimes he would gamble away huge sums of money - he once lost $200,000 at the tables in Rouen. At first it led to the M25, where Dhondy was directed one morning by Sobhraj. [17] [13] Imprisonment in Nepal [ edit] Sobhraj retired to a comfortable life in suburban Paris. Back in the Seventies, Sobhraj murdered at least ten people, mostly Western travellers along the Asian hippie trail. It had been 15 years since I'd last heard from Sobhraj, quite possibly the most disarming serial killer in criminal history, but his voice was instantly recognisable. He then told me about being approached by an agent for Saddam Hussein's regime, before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, to buy red mercury, a semi-mythical substance that was said, without credible attribution, to be used in the creation of nuclear weapons. He was by turns funny, enigmatic, absurd and engaging. Six years ago, when she just 20, Biswas married Sobhraj in a ceremony inside Kathamandu Central Jail. Moi, le Serpent Charles Sobhraj Babelio . Read the Book Spoilers Now, drugging and trying to rob a group of French engineering students in India, wasn't convicted for any murders prior to 1997, statute of limitations on his arrest was up, paid $5 million for his life story and reportedly gave interviews for $6,000 each, detailed his own experience talking with Sobhraj. I too made the journey to Paris and managed to arrange an interview for the Observer with the Vietnamese-Indian Frenchman. Sometimes he would complete the murder by setting the body on fire - in more than one case, investigators found that the victim was not dead when he or she was set alight. Well, its quite well known that there is corruption in every sector in Nepal. 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. Ciencia y Tecnologa. Boris Johnson, arms dealing, drug trafficking, the Taliban, the Triads, the CIA, the Iraq war and Saddam's secret search for a nuclear bomb: when my phone rang in the lobby of the Shanker Hotel, I knew nothing of these aspects of the story that had brought me to Kathmandu. In 2003, Sobhraj was arrested once more in Nepal, then later convicted for the 1975 murders of American Connie Jo Bronzich and Canadian Laurent Carrire.

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