Kathmandu:The Supreme court of Nepal on Sunday issued a writ of mandamus to the government, telling it to take a decision in three months on whether or not murder convict Charles Sobhraj qualifies for waiver of his remaining jail sentence.
Charles Sobhraj (75), a Frenchman, who earned the nickname bikini killer for allegedly committing serial murders throughout Asia in the 1970s, was convicted in Nepal in two murder cases and has been in jail here since 2003.
In response to the writ petition filed by Shobhraj in November last year, a bench of justices Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada and Bam Kumar Shrestha directed the government to take the decisions within three months, The Himalayan Times reported.
In 2014, Sobhraj was sentenced to 20 years in jail for the 1975 murder in Kathmandu of a Canadian tourist Laurent Carriere.
In 2004, he was sentenced to life in Nepal for murdering American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich. Sobhraj had undergone open heart surgery last year.
According to Senior Citizen Act provisions for waiver of senior citizens’ jail sentence, they can get waiver of sentence not exceeding 50 per cent in the case of the senior citizen who has completed the age of 70 years, but not crossed the age of 75 years. (UNI)
