KATHMANDU, Dec 21: The Supreme Court has ordered the government to release French serial killer Charles Sobhraj from jail. A division bench of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha ordered the government to release Sobhraj from jail.

Sobhraj had earlier filed an application claiming that he was put in prison more than the period recommended for him on murder charge. The division bench of Malla and Shrestha passed the verdict, concluding that his claim was genuine.

Sobhraj, who is serving a 19-year jail term on charge of murders at the central jail, had filed habeas corpus petitions through his lawyer. He claimed that he had completed his jail term as per the ‘concessions’ entitled to senior citizens of Nepal. Sobhraj is already 78 years old.

District Court, Bhaktapur, had slapped him with a life sentence for the murder of American citizen Connie Jo Bronzich and Canadian citizen Laurent Carriere in December 1975. According to the court’s verdict, Sobhraj will have to stay in jail till September 18, 2023 to serve 20-year imprisonment as per the term of a life sentence.

Earlier in December, 2021, Sobhraj had filed a writ petition at the Supreme Court on December 22 demanding that the government ‘provide relief to senior citizens’. He claimed in the writ petition that he had already served 17 of the 20 years of his sentence and had already been recommended for release for behaving well.

In a written response demanded by the apex court whether Shobraj should be given exemption following his writ petition, the government had said that Sobhraj's crime had not been exempted and that he would not be exempted as he was a foreign national. “There is no provision in the law for the offender to be exempted due to age, disease or other reasons. Although the imprisonment can be reduced, it cannot be reduced in cases of murder, smuggling, rape, escape, assist for escape, etc.,” read the written reply of the government.

 
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