charles sobhraj interview bbc 1997

In any case, it requires no great intellect to kill someone. After all, I cannot now face trial . "I risked my life for the war on terror," he protested, a little improbably, claiming that the CIA abandoned him when he was arrested. So Dhondy set up a meeting with Boris Johnson, the current mayor of London, who was then editor of the Spectator, at the Islington house of Peter Oborne, then the magazine's political editor. You are known to have been in touch with American intelligence agencies even from Kathmandu Jail. He was also a student of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's "will to power". "I am a busy man with my own film production company in Paris. A generation was looking to find itself by getting lost or high somewhere off the beaten track. Mention Charles Sobhraj in India, everybody knows, north to south. In July 1976 Sobhraj was on the run in India, wanted for several murders in Thailand and two in Nepal. 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"? When tourists began going missing, or turning up dead, Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg was tasked with investigating the disappearances. After all, it's not often that renowned multiple killers are at liberty and available to talk. But his first and abiding love was Chantal Compagnon, a French woman from a deeply conservative background. His father was a successful Indian tailor and his mother was his father's mistress, a local Vietnamese woman. The petition dragged on for months and finally, on August 10 (2016), the court directed the government to increase the daily food allowance. "I would see," she said, unflustered. "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.'". When the Nepalese police questioned "Gautier", he claimed he was a Dutchman called Henricus Bintanja - who happened to be dead in Bangkok, another victim, it is thought, of Sobhraj. He greeted me like an old friend, and told me that he wanted me to write his autobiography, as though his life was filled with achievement. "Everyone has good and bad sides. "Think about the money," he said. As The Serpent shows, Bangkok in 1976 was a place where anyone with the right connections and spare cash could evade unwanted police attention. 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. Moi, le Serpent Charles Sobhraj Babelio . Suddenly Sobhraj emerged from a door in the corner. He didnt seem dangerous to me, but then he didnt seem dangerous to those he killed, either. The crazy thing is he did have contacts in the Taliban, through a former Islamist cellmate in Delhi, and he probably knew Chinese gangsters from his time flitting about in Hong Kong. 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. 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. 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. A Bollywood film (Main Aur Charles) has been made on you. For his part, Ganesh claimed that as a young boy he had been traumatised by seeing Connie Jo Bronzich's burnt and naked corpse in a field near his home. We then continued our all-consuming research into the murders. Sobhraj described Dhondy as a "petty middleman", while Dhondy called the threat to sue him "extortion and blackmail". He was always studying character, alive to any signs of weakness that could be exploited. Its OK. Are you in contact with Indian intelligence agencies? 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. "He's an old friend of mine," she said, "and he admitted it was all a lie. 1 day ago, by Samantha Brodsky Richard died four years ago and its now been more than 40 years since Bungles and Mishap, two amusingly naive youngsters, got to write a classic true crime book, about which in retrospect, I now feel enormous pride. Humanitarian work? The chilling evidence he uncovered put Sobhraj behind bars with a life sentence. "He wrote back asking if it could fit into two suitcases. 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. It's a front for selling arms. After all, it's not often that renowned multiple killers are at liberty and available to talk. 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. Tahar Rahim as Sohhraj in the BBC drama series The Serpent. And then we pulled up at a cheap brasserie on some kind of industrial estate. My programme was to be in Kathmandu for only a few days for that meeting, and leave. ", Nevertheless a few years ago, while he was working in India, Dhondy received a phone call from Sobhraj in Kathmandu Central Jail. Herman Knippenberg now lives in New Zealand, where he keeps a large archive on Sobhrajs crimes in his home. 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. And if so, I would very much have Randeep Hooda to again play my role. He had just been released from jail in India, where he had spent 20 years on various charges (but not for any of the murders for which he was alleged to be responsible). They had just had a daughter, who was sent back to live with Compagnons parents in France. One night a drill bit appeared through the wooden door of our room. But someone leaked to the media my presence in Kathmandu and it hit the front pages. When tourists began going missing, or turning up dead, Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg was tasked with investigating the disappearances. 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 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. You met Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar while in Tihar Jail. "Ask Nietzsche," he replied with a grin. While you might not be able to track down the interview footage, Sobhraj definitely became a media star following his release, reportedly talking to reporters for hefty sums after settling down in Paris. Later, he realised that the confession might prove problematic and denied everything he told Neville about the murders. He asked Dhondy to investigate the availability of hot-air balloons. In its latest report, Transparency International has classified Nepal as the third most corrupt country after Afghanistan and Bangladesh. "'You'll get 100,000 if you do this for us,' he said, 'because we're not selling furniture. 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. Young idealists, trusting backpackers and hash-smoking stoners were looking to get lost, and Sobhraj made sure some of them were never found. I wanted to know what he thought about his past deeds. It was an era of porous borders and lax security, when the only contact with back home were poste restante letters that might take weeks to arrive. I told him what I knew, that the Russians said that they had an isotope that could act as a trigger for nuclear bombs "It was a hotel on the M20 junction," Dhondy recalled. You can ask for confirmation from Jaswant Singh. Like Patricia Highsmiths Tom Ripley, he assumed different identities, using stolen passports and creating a trail of havoc wherever he went. '", Dhondy said Compagnon's theory about Sobhraj is that he can't live without prison, the regime, the routine, and the status he enjoys there. After many false starts, a year later I found myself back in Kathmandu, where the producers had secured a prison interview. Now you can ask your questions.. Sobhraj met his current Nepalese lawyer, Shakuntala Thapa, through her daughter, 24-year-old Nihita Biswas, who acted as his translator during one of the Frenchman's many appeals. 2 weeks ago, by Eden Arielle Gordon "They couldn't help me because I was undercover.". First Richard Neville, the celebrated chronicler of the Sixties counterculture, drew an extended taped confession from Sobhraj in, The Life And Crimes Of Charles Sobhraj - later renamed, The Shadow Of The Cobra. What skills could he employ in France and who would employ him? And so began our immersion in his psychopathic world. He eventually made off with thousands of pounds worth of jewels. I asked whether he'd be prepared to discuss the murders in this bestseller. But Sobhraj was not political. Even bad deeds with good intentions can be good deeds.. I met Thapa and Biswas together in Kathmandu to discuss Sobhraj and his case. I dont want to say more about that its a private matter. When we flew out of Delhi I had never felt so relieved. First day, first show: Harmanpreet Kaur kicks off the biggest night in women's cricket with a bang, SC order on appointments will enhance Election Commission's credibility. The calls from Kathmandu were mostly when he was taken out of jail for a court hearing or a visit to the hospital. 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. Mr Jaswant Singh was in direct contact with me. "You must talk to him.". At 67 he was still in good shape, though he seemed to have aged a lot in the time since Id seen him, and he was particularly self-conscious about having lost his hair. "Can you recommend one?". 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. At first it led to the M25, where Dhondy was directed one morning by Sobhraj. On August 15, 2016, when his release seemed imminent, Sobhraj replied to questions I sent him on email, with a caveat: the interview, he insisted, should be published only on his release from Kathmandu Jail. Sobhraj. After politely sidestepping his offer, I got on to the question I'd been waiting a long time to ask: whatever made him come back to Nepal? The monarchy never recovered, and under the added pressure of a Maoist insurgency, Nepal was declared a republic in 2008. So not Nepali handicrafts, after all. We seemed to drive for ages, until I had no idea where we were. On the Trail of the Serpent by Julie Clarke and Richard Neville is published by Vintage. The real Charles Sobhraj is still alive and is now serving time in prison after a long time evading punishment, while Marie Andre Leclerc was diagnosed with uterine cancer in 1983 and died the. Nepal is a strange and mystifying society. Interview de Charles Sobhraj alias "Le serpent" dans "Sept Huit" le tueur raconte tout Purepeople. His first wife was once asked by an Indian journalist how she could have feelings for a killer. He called me at my Channel 4 office in Charlotte Street in 1997. Dominique Renelleau, played by Fabien Frankel in the. 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. He proposed to her within weeks and promised to go straight. Twenty metres by 30 metres of balloon won't go into a suitcase, and there's also a metal burner that can't be squashed down.". Read about our approach to external linking. It's a dusty, noisy place, like a cross between a bazaar and a dilapidated fort. Sometimes he would gamble away huge sums of money - he once lost $200,000 at the tables in Rouen. "But I was also working for the CIA," he added, as I'm still trying to put the pieces together. His efforts to sell his prison memoirs came to nothing, however, and six years later he was arrested in Nepal for the murders in December 1975 of a 28-year-old American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich and her friend, a Canadian by the name of Laurent Carrire, whose mutilated corpses were found that Christmas in fields near Kathmandu. I didnt commit any offence in Nepal so I didnt apprehend any problems. Sobhraj did not settle in his new home and twice stowed away on ships heading to Africa. I am going straight back to France to my family. Finally we did. He became known as the Bikini Killer after the swimsuit one of his victims was wearing when she was discovered. At first, he sent an envoy to meet me in Paris. He is obsessed with preventing anyone from exploiting his life for financial gain and threatened to sue the writer. Soon recognised by a journalist, Sobhraj found himself in the Himalayan Times. I was a little anxious that he had taken objection to my portrayal of him as a dissembling if captivating psychopath. Well, you already know about it After Masood Azhars release following the Indian Airline hijacking incident (in 1999), The Indian Express had mentioned my role with the Government of India at that time. They typically have a background in crime and they tend to select their victims from a particular social group or demographic. In mid-70s Bangkok, Dutchman Herman Knippenberg was tasked with finding two missing travellers. In The Serpent he is accurately portrayed as a dogged if novice investigator. "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. IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. On 17 February 1997, 52-year-old Sobhraj was released with most warrants, evidence, and even witnesses against him long lost. His pattern is to befriend, then drug and rob, or drug and murder, or, while in jail, manipulate and betray. '", Sobhraj wanted Dhondy to lease the shop as a British citizen and took him up to his hotel to show him a Russian manual full of armaments. According to the Bangkok Post, he underwent heart surgery in 2017. by Lindsay Kimble With the pair of them I got into a small car and we drove around Paris, heading out to the suburbs beyond the Priphrique. "I don't think so," says Biswas, when I ask her if she thinks Sobhraj has ever killed anyone. Tell us about your family You have a daughter in Paris. The limited series then dives into a chilling 1997 interview with Sobhraj, who's played by Tahar Rahim. Having successfully persuaded a killer to acknowledge his guilt on screen in a previous documentary they had made, they were interested in making a film about Sobhraj. His name was Charles Sobhraj, better known as 'The Serpent'. Those hands had snapped necks.) The couple soon split up and Sobhraj lived with his mother and her new boyfriend, a French soldier. So will you return to France or spend time as a free man with your family in Nepal? They were working on serious matters: politics, saving the world. He would befriend them, advise them on where to eat and how to buy gemstones, sometimes put them up at the Bangkok apartment he shared with his French-Canadian girlfriend, and then kill them. Charles Sobhraj was re-captured on April 6, 1986 drinking beer in a resort bar. Sobhraj denied all knowledge of the plot, but the prison authorities claimed that the gunman had visited him 21 times in the preceding months. I too made the journey to Paris and managed to arrange an interview for the Observer with the Vietnamese-Indian Frenchman. He took it, got into the car, drove to Holland and gambled it all away. If that didn't put her off him, you'd have thought she might have been disabused by his abuse of her. In autumn 2011, she appeared as a contestant on Bigg Boss, India's equivalent of, Feisty and articulate, she ran through all the legal flaws in the prosecution's case. You must be thirsty, he said, and held out an already opened bottle of Coke. He was also charged with the murders of an Israeli academic in Varanasi and a French tourist in Delhi. He escaped from three prisons in three different countries. His pattern is to befriend, then drug and rob, or drug and murder, or manipulate and betray' (Biographer Richard Neville). This, then, was the man outside whose hotel room I stood on a warm spring day in Paris in 1997. Confronted with all these fantastic stories, Dhondy did what many other writers would have done and turned them into a novel, published in India, entitled The Bikini Murders. It didnt help that Sobhrajs creepy emissaries would arrive at all hours with handwritten missives. ", Biswas says she is no longer able to visit her husband owing to pressure from the authorities. He was narcissistic, amusing, teasing and, it had to be said, a psychopath. But the rest was undoubtedly a product of his pathological imagination. Again, Dhondy believes the meeting in Nepal was a real one. IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. 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. It was 1977 and my boyfriend and I were working as journalists in New York. From Bangkok to Bombay, Charles Sobhraj left a trail of destruction wherever he ventured. I hope to live for many years to come. What are your plans after release from jail? Charles Sobhraj, pictured in 1997, the year he was released after 21 years in a New Delhi jail. It was a little playful test, and one I politely turned down. He fancied himself as a kind of streetwise intellect, a superman resisting the imperialist order. He met her when he was 24 and fresh out of prison in Paris. Subs offer. Of course, my first priority will be to return to France. Every cent. . How are your finances? Apparently he hung out every night for a couple of weeks at a casino, as if he wanted to be noticed. 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. 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. That way, the previous ten journalist requests had been successfully steered into a dead end. He was relying on Dhondy to put his case. I asked her why she came back to him, and she said 'I love him. It proved the last straw for his wife. His mother then married an occupying French soldier who, suffering from PTSD, returned to France with his young family. Other times his gambling debts would lead him to take excessive risks. On the eve of the interview, the Nepali authorities changed their minds, and we returned home empty-handed. With his wide cheekbones; shapely thick lips; piercing eyes; lithe, muscular build; confident manner and dangerous reputation, he presented an irresistible challenge to many female suitors. In one way or another, casinos have often proved Sobhraj's downfall. 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. 10 hours ago, by Eden Arielle Gordon The Midnight Hour: The Serpent (Charles Sobhraj) 133,134 views Feb 4, 2020 200 Dislike Share Save UTD TV 2.37K subscribers This week in the season 2 premiere of The Midnight Hour, your fellow. Handicrafts? All he really possesses are the secrets of his crimes. Such a clip from ABC isn't readily available to view, but many other profiles with Sobhraj can be found on the internet. A martial-arts fanatic, he seemed to be physically, psychologically and philosophically armed with everything required to dominate others. However, he broke out of prison and faced another decade in jail after he was caught. Eventually word got round that he was Charles Sobhraj, so one of my staff asked his name and he said, 'Sob.'" The whole story from the Taliban to Saddam sounded like the product of an international-class fantasist's imagination. Published: April 9, 2021 at 2:48 pm. Thanks to evidence preserved and provided by his old adversary Knippenberg, he was found guilty and given a life sentence. There is a great deal of mythology surrounding serial killers and, indeed, the term itself is not exactly a scientific designation. Charles Sobhraj is bundled into a police van in Delhi in 1997, shortly after his release from jail. In fact, his relationship with Compagnon continued until less than three years ago, when she was threatened on the phone by an angry Nihita Biswas. He thought that, secretly, he harboured a wish to return to prison, even if once there he would spend all his time trying to get out. The ABC team were not the only ones back then to speak to Sobhraj, who was suspected of committing at least 12 murders. Instead it was left to a junior Dutch diplomat looking for the missing Dutch couple, Henk Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker, who became Sobhrajs nemesis. Charles Sobhraj, pictured in 1997, the year he was released after 21 years in a New Delhi jail. President Reagan: 17-23 February 1986 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. Moreover, when I was released from India, the Indian government had asked Nepal whether I was wanted. The notorious murderer who preyed on 70s backpackers is the subject of a new BBC drama. For the poor Nepali inmates, its a question of survival life or death. The authorities were mystified by the incorrigible recidivist who was in and out of reform school and prison during his teens. "This is Charles, Charles Sobhraj." All of which meant that in 1997 he returned to Paris, where I went to interview him for the Observer. Definitely. anywhere in the world." There are disturbing descriptions throughout this episode. If Sobhraj's greatest criminal weakness was his propensity to be caught, it was offset by an impressive strength: his ability to escape. He grew up amid terror on the city streets and fierce disputes at home. "I kept trying to find out what he was doing, but he wouldn't say. Nepal to release The Serpent serial killer Charles Sobhraj, TheSerpent: a slow-burn TV success that's more than a killer thriller, TVtonight: Charles Sobhraj's life of crime, Speaking with the Serpent: my encounters with serial killer Charles Sobhraj, 'I saw him as an animal': Tahar Rahim on playing a real-life serial killer. 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. "She left her husband and came back to Paris when she heard that I was back," he said with proprietorial pride, referring to his return in 1997. Now 76 years old, he is reportedly in poor health while serving a life sentence in Nepal. He was given a life sentence in 1999 for taking an art teacher hostage in prison. Sobhraj was a nuisance for both the Nepalese and French, and neither wanted to afford him the opportunity for publicity. In stressful situations he remains calm and plausible, regardless of what lies he tells. How do you want to spend the next few years of your life? He was a charismatic figure, fluent in several languages, and finely tuned to what budget travellers wanted. 1 day ago. Death Stalks the Hippy trail! read one headline. . He slept with many of them, including his lawyer, Sneh Senger, and became engaged to at least two others. How do you see Nepals judicial system? Sobhraj conformed to many but not all of these characteristics. He yearns for life outside, but once there he soon finds himself back behind bars. In one of the rooms hed abandoned, just before the police had arrived, he had left a copy of Nietzsches Beyond Good and Evil. Also, as the inmates are kept on a starving diet, the yearly incidence of death is quite high. He also attended a dinner at the Breakers Hotel and played polo at the International Polo Club. At times he could be articulate, thoughtful, sensitive; yet he was also wilful, stubborn and recklessly compulsive. But the very same day he was arrested for car theft and served eight months back inside. Knippenbergs direct manner is well captured by Billy Howle, but while Tahar Rahims depiction of Sobhraj gets his enigmatic detachment and quiet menace, it doesnt catch what, in a way, are his more troubling qualities: wit and charm and a kind of playful sense of self-mythologising. Concerned that other sections of the media might discover his hotel location, he suggested that we conduct the interview elsewhere. "He knows everything," he said. He was shunted back and forth between his parents and when he was nine, and officially stateless, deposited in a boarding school in France. Talking. He told me he was about to be released. 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. The limited series then dives into a chilling 1997 interview with Sobhraj, who's played by Tahar Rahim. He was jailed in India again for a period during which, according to CNN, the time where he could be tried for. Chowdhury disappeared after a trip to Malaysia with Sobhraj and has never been seen again. The explanation he gave to the press at the time didn't ring true. I have written a manuscript with a co-writer, Jean Charles Deniau, and the book will be publishedIll be busy with the promotion and the making of some documentaries. , Awesome, Youre All Set! I changed the topic and asked about Chantal Compagnon. His motto was: "When you feel the heat, go to the kitchen", and there is little question that he thrived in stressful situations. Perhaps it's true. According to Sobhraj, he aimed to double-cross both parties and enable the CIA to smash an international drug and arms deal between a terrorist organisation and a crime syndicate. In Greece he swapped identities with his brother, leaving him to serve an 18-year sentence. And such was the richly implausible nature of his exploits that Sobhraj generated his own impressive literary testaments. The reporter says, "There are those who would say you got away with it." 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.

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charles sobhraj interview bbc 1997