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Title: Charles Sobhraj The Bikini Killer

Editor: Anand Sharma Date: July 30, 2010 Price: Free Download at xnepali.com Description: Collection of historical profile and news coverage. Version: 1.0

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xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj Charles Sobhraj The Bikini Killer

Described as Asias premier serial killer, The Serpent and The Bikini Killer, Charles Sobhraj was infamous con artist, drug dealer, jewel thief and coldblooded murderer. Through the 1960s and 1970s, he wove his guileful and lethal web of deceit and crime, evading authorities from numerous countries. Skilled at befriending people, his victims were usually vulnerable Western tourists in Southeast Asia. In and out of prison, he led a life of risk, manipulation and conspiracy that eventually made him a media celebrity. Never convicted for all his crimes, Sobhraj is estimated by some to have committed over 20 murders, whilst others put this number at 32. He was in Tihar prison, India for one murder, from 1976 to 1997. Rearrested in 2004, he is currently serving a life imprisonment sentence in Kathmandu, Nepal, for a double murder in 1975. He was born Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj in Saigon, Vietnam, which was under French rule at the time, and later claimed French nationality because of this. His unmarried mother was Vietnamese, with some sources naming her Noy and others, Song. His father was a Sindhi Indian from Mumbai and deserted the family soon after Sobhrajs birth. Sobhraj was adopted by his mothers new boyfriend, Alphonse Darreau, a French lieutenant stationed in Saigon. The couple married and the family moved to Marseille, France. Sobhraj had an unsettled childhood, as the family moved constantly between France and Indochina, never feeling quite at home in either place. At a fairly young age, Sobhraj began to display personality problems and discipline became an issue. In his teens, he turned to petty crime, which soon began to escalate out of control. In 1960, at the age of 16, Sobhraj began stealing and in 1963, age 19 he received his first jail sentence for burglary and was sentenced to three years at Poissy prison near Paris. In this harsh prison, Sobhraj began to hone his
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xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

skills of manipulation in order to endear himself to prison officials to gain favors, such as keeping books in his cell. In 1969, when Sobhraj was paroled, he moved in with Felix dEscogne, a man he had met whilst in jail. He simultaneously lived the high society life in Paris, whilst also dabbling in the criminal underworld with various scams and burglaries. Women would fall for him, as he could be particularly charming. It was during this time that Sobhraj met a young lady, Chantal, from a conservative Parisian family, and they fell in love. On the night that Sobhraj proposed to Chantal, he was arrested for evading police in a stolen car and sent back to Poissy prison for a further eight months, charged with car theft. Chantal waited for him and upon his release, they married. She soon fell pregnant but the couple began to worry about the fact that the French authorities had Sobhraj in their sights and the threat of arrest was ever-present. They decided to leave France for Asia and, using false travel documents, began travelling through Eastern Europe. They would befriend fellow travelers and then rob them of their valuables, beating a hasty retreat to the next victim. In 1970, the couple arrived in Mumbai, India, where Chantal gave birth to their daughter. Here they settled, in an attempt to provide a stable environment for their child. On the surface they made a good impression, endearing themselves to the Indian ex-pat community. However, Sobhraj had turned to crime once more and was running a car theft and smuggling enterprise. Instead of using the profits for something positive for his family, he ploughed them into his newfound hobby of gambling. Gun smuggling In December 1971, the couple fled to Kabul, Afghanistan, where they stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel for quite a while, apparently departing without paying the bill. It was here that Sobhraj made contacts for illegal gun smuggling, moving the weapons from Afghanistan by land route to sell in India. Sobhraj moved on to Pakistan, where in Rawalpindi he stole a car by drugging the driver, who died from poisoning. Around this time, he is alleged to have also been running a curio shop in Bangkok, in order to lure his favourite victims, foreign tourists. He would drug them, sometimes to death, and steal their belongings. In 1973, Sobhraj committed an armed robbery at a jewellery shop in Hotel Ashoka, Delhi but was arrested and sent to prison. At the time of Sobhrajs arrest, police confiscated a number of revolvers, rifles and other weapons from him. After a fortnight in prison, Sobhraj faked appendicitis and
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xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

managed to escape during a blackout, as it was the time of the IndiaBangladesh war. Sobhraj and Chantal went on the run but Sobhraj was soon caught and put back in prison. He managed to borrow money for bail and the couple fled India for Afghanistan. They settled in Kabul, where they immediately began robbing tourists following the hippie trail between Europe and Eastern Asia. Arrested again, Sobhraj escaped once more pretending illness and drugging the hospital guard. This time he left his family behind and fled to Iran. Weary of the constant disruption to their lives that Sobhrajs criminal activity brought, Chantal returned to France with her daughter, declaring that she never wanted to see Sobhraj again. For the next two years Sobhraj was on the run from authorities and travelled around Eastern Europe and the Middle East, always using stolen passports. His younger brother, Andr, joined him in Istanbul and the two of them went on a crime spree in Greece and Turkey. The brothers were arrested and imprisoned in Athens but Sobhraj managed to escape once more, leaving Andr to serve his sentence. Drug Dealer In 1975, Sobhraj moved to Thailand, becoming a drug dealer to finance his lifestyle. He had also hatched a new plan and that was to create a kind of criminal family, with him at the helm. His first devotee was Marie-Andre Leclerc from Quebec, Canada. She fell for his charm and was content to ignore both his dalliances with other women and his criminal activity. To gather more members into his clan, Sobhraj formed a new con. He would select his victims, create a troublesome situation for them and then pose as the knight in shining armour who would solve the problem. Having no idea Sobhraj was the cause of their misery in the first place; they would feel indebted to him for his aid. Using his fluency in French, he homed in on French tourists. Sobhraj stole former French policemen, Yannick and Jacques passports, and then helped the men retrieve them. Dominique Rennelleau from France thought he had dysentery when in fact Sobhraj had given him poisoned dysentery medication and then nursed him back to health. Sobhraj and his family were staying at a resort in the beach town of Pattaya, where Sobhraj met a fellow criminal, Ajay Chowdhury. The young Indian man became Sobhrajs second-in-command and the two embarked on a killing spree in 1975. Many of their victims had been part of the family and it is possible that they were killed to prevent them going to the authorities.

xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

The first known victim was Teresa Knowlton, a young woman from Seattle who had travelled from Bangkok and was en route to Kathmandu, where she was to study Tibetan Buddhism at Kopan Monastery. She met Sobhraj, who allegedly offered to be her guide and to take her to Pattaya Beach, where her body was later found burned. Jennie Bollivar, a young woman from America, had travelled to Thailand to meditate and to experience the Buddhist lifestyle. When she met Sobhraj, he tried to convince her to join his family but she refused. Bollivar was found drowned in a tidal pool in the Gulf of Thailand, near the town of Pattaya, wearing a flower-patterned bikini. A number of months passed before the autopsy results, combined with forensic evidence, proved the drowning in fact to be a murder. The killers next victim was a young nomadic Sephardic Jew, Vitali Hakim. His body was found burned on the road to the Pattaya resort where the family were staying. Henk Bintanja, 29 and his fiance Cornelia Hemker, 25 were Dutch students who had met Sobhraj in Hong Kong. He had invited them to Thailand and they took him up on his offer. When they arrived, Sobhraj poisoned them then nursed them back to health. During this time, Charmayne Carrou, the girlfriend of Sobhrajs previous victim, Hakim, came to investigate his disappearance. Anxious that she may discover what they had done, Sobhraj and Chowdhury swiftly dealt with the problem. Bintanja and Hemkers bodies were found strangled and burned on 16th December 1975. Later that same month, Carrou was found drowned in similar circumstances to Bollivar, wearing a similar flower-patterned bikini. At first, police investigators did not connect the two cases but when they did, Sobhraj became known as The Bikini Killer. Stolen passports Sobhraj decided it was time to move again and on 18th December 1975, he and Leclerc used Bintanja and Hemkers Dutch passports to enter Nepal. It was here they met two travellers, Laurent Ormond Carriere, 26, from Canada and Connie Bronzich, 29, from California, whom they befriended. Carriere and Bronzich were murdered and their burned bodies found on 22nd December 1975. Some sources claim these victims were Laddie DuParr and Annabella Tremont. Sobhraj was questioned and then released by police in Kathmandu.
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Sobhraj and Leclerc used Carriere and Bronzichs passports to return to Thailand before their victims were identified. Once there, Sobhraj discovered his French family members, Yannick, Jacques and Rennelleau, had begun to suspect him of being involved in the Pattaya murders. In Sobhrajs absence, they had discovered documents belonging to the victims in the resort at which they stayed.

Sobhraj fled to Calcutta, India, where he murdered an Israeli student, Avoni Jacob, for his passport. He used this to travel to Singapore, Malaysia with Leclerc and Chowdhury, then on to India and back to Bangkok, Thailand in March 1976. Sobhraj was questioned by Thai police in connection with the Bikini Murders but was not charged. Some sources claim the reason for this was their fear of the potential negative publicity, adversely affecting the countrys tourist trade, such an action could create. Sobhraj immediately left Thailand for Malaysia. Herman Knippenberg, a Dutch embassy diplomat, was investigating the murders of Bintanja and Hemker and Sobhraj was his prime suspect. Knippenberg began building a case against him and a month after Sobhraj had left Thailand, Knippenberg was given police permission to search Sobhrajs apartment. He uncovered evidence including documents belonging to the murder victims and poisoned medicines. Encouraged, he continued to collect evidence in the case against Sobhraj, which eventually ran into decades. In Malaysia, Sobhraj and Chowdhury stole thousands of pounds worth of precious gems. Shortly after this, Chowdhury disappeared and he was never found. It is alleged that Sobhraj murdered him before leaving Malaysia with Leclerc. The couple travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to sell their stolen
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xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

jewels before returning to India to rebuild the criminal family. Sobhrajs new recruits were two lost tourists, Barbara Sheryl Smith and Mary Ellen Eather, whom he met in Mumbai. Sobhraj then befriended French tourist Jean-Luc Solomon whom he poisoned in a south Delhi hotel, with the intention to rob him, but Solomon died of the poison. It was Solomons death that would finally result in Sobhraj being imprisoned for 21 years in India. In July 1976, New Delhi, Sobhraj, Leclerc, Smith and Eather managed to trick a group of post-graduate French students into accepting them as travel guides. Once again, Sobhraj used his poisoned dysentery medicine on the group. However, this time it backfired because the poison began working a lot faster than he expected. When the first few students began falling where they stood, the others became alarmed and called the police. Sobhraj and his group of three women were arrested and interrogated. Sobhraj was charged with the murder of Jean-Luc Solomon and sent with Leclerc, Smith and Eather to the infamous Tihar prison outside New Delhi to await trial. Conditions at Tihar were extremely harsh and both Smith and Eather attempted suicide during the wait for their trial.

Escape Artist The sentence may not mean much to Sobhraj (described as "Asia's premier serial killer" by one source). He has escaped from jails in a number of countries. He is supposed to have dug his way out of an Afghan prison with a spoon and escaped Greek custody by setting fire to the prison van he was locked inside of with other inmates. In 1971 he pretended to have appendicitis after an arrest in India for allegedly robbing a jewelry store; he was admitted to a hospital and escaped during one of the night time blackouts that was common during India's war with Banladesh. Background We know a great deal about Sobhraj because he has been so willing to brag about his exploits in the past. Since his release from jail in India in 1997 it has been possible for a journalist or writer to simply pay a fee and meet Sobhraj at a Paris cafe for a chat and photos. The fee? About five thousand dollars.... Sobhraj was born in Saigon in 1944, the son of an Indian man from Bombay and a Vietnamese mother, named Noy (some sources refer to her as
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xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

"Song"). His mother's second husband, a French military officer stationed in Saigon, Lieutenant Alphonse Darreau, later adopted Charles Sobhraj and he was eventually resettled with his mother in Marseille, France. Early encounters with the law began before he was an adult. He twice ran away from his Paris boarding school and returned to Vietnam, reportedly paying for the trip through check fraud. Sobhraj spent three years for burglary and eight months for car theft in prison in France in the 1960's. In the 1970's Sobhraj became dabbling in drug smuggling. He also built up a small family of accomplices around himself. But Sobhraj was criminally flexible and supported himself in part by befriending travelers, drugging them, robbing them, and then sometimes killing them. The Thailand Mikini Murders Sobhraj remains the number one suspect in the Bikini Murders that took place in Thailand in 1975. But he has succeeded in avoiding being returned to Thailand and it's doubtful that he will ever stand trial there. One of his first alleged victims in Thailand was Teresa Knowlton, a Seattle woman who had traveled to Bangkok on her way to Kathmandu; she was planning to study Tibetan Buddhism at Kopan Monastery. Knowlton met Sobhraj and he reportedly offered to take her to Pattaya Beach. Like many of Sobhraj's victims, her body burnt. Sobhraj is supposed to have confessed specifically to the Knowlton murder to an Australian journalist. Jennie Bollivar was killed not much later. Bollivar was an American who had come to Thailand to "find herself through meditation and immersion into a Buddhist lifestyle." Sobhraj had attempted to bring her into his "family" and she'd refused. Sobhraj is thought to have killed her to prevent her from telling police about his smuggling activities. Bollivar was found, wearing her flowered bikini (thus, the "Bikini Murders"), in the Gulf of Thailand near the resort town of Pattaya. In December of 1975 Charmayne Carrou, a French woman, was found like Bollivar. The death earlier of her boyfriend, Vitali Hakim, was also later connected to Sobhraj. A Dutch couple, Henk Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker, died around the same time shortly after meeting Sobhraj in Hong Kong and following him to Bangkok. Like Hakim, the Dutch couple's bodies were burnt. Sobhraj is thought to have left Bangkok for Kathmandu at this point, using Bintanja's passport. In all, Sobhraj is implicated in at least 10 murders in Thailand in 1975.

xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

Life in South Asia In Nepal Sobhraj associated himself with a couple, Canadian Laddie DuParr and Californian Annabella Tremont. After spending time with the couple in Kathmandu's "Freak Street" area, DuParr and Tremont were found dead. DuParr's body was burnt, and because Sobhraj's left Nepal on DuParr's passport, Nepalese police assumed at first that DuParr killed his own girlfriend. Sobhraj returned to Nepal after selling the couple's valuables in Bangkok. He was questioned and released by police in Kathmandu. At some point during this time other members of his "family" discovered documents implicating him in the Bikini Murders and handed those documents over to the police. Sobhraj left Nepal for Calcutta where he is thought to have robbed and killed an Israeli scholar named Avoni Jacob before going on to Singapore and then returning briefly to Bangkok. In Bangkok he was questioned about the Bikini Murders. Sobharj is supposed to have been released on a bribe of about $18,000 and fled to Malaysia. From Malaysia Sobhraj moved on to Bombay after obtaining about $40,000 worth of gemstones. In Bombay Sobhraj drugged Frenchman Jean-Luc Solomon to rob him, but Solomon died. It was Solomon's death that would eventually result in Sobhraj spending 21 years in prison in India -- jail time that, ironically, probably saved him from the death penalty in Thailand. After the Solomon murder Sobhraj joined a 60-member French tour group that was traveling from Bombay to Delhi. Sobhraj attempted to drug the entire group at a Delhi hotel, giving them pills he promised would fight intestinal problems. But some members of the group passed out in the hotel lobby and Sobhraj was caught by Indian police. India charged him with murder for the killing of Jean-Luc Solomon. He was confined to Tihar Prison, near Delhi, from 1976 to 1997. A warrant for his extradition to Thailand also existed. Sobhraj was originally sentenced to seven year for the murder (he was spared India's death penalty, though prosecutors wanted it) and five years on other counts. Additional time was added after he escaped from a maximum security prison in 1986. He was free for 22 days before being arrested at a seafood restaurant in Goa. Sobhraj claims that he contrived his own arrest in 1986 instead of leaving the country because he wanted to avoid being extradited to Thailand. He had lived like a king in India's prison system, bribing guards to bring him gourmet food and to install a television in his cell. Release from Tihar Prison

xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

On February 17, 1997, Sobhraj was released from Tihar Prison. The extradition warrant to Thailand, valid for only 20 years, had expired. India deported him to France, where he moved to the Chinese section of Paris and lived as something of a celebrity. A deal for an Indian movie based on his life brought him about $15 million. There were also book deals. Arrest in Nepal Sobhraj is alleged to have committed as many as 32 murders. He was arrested in September of 2003 at an all-night casino inside the Yak and Yeti hotel in Kathmandu. Sobhraj has been found guilty of killing a US tourist in 1975. He was sentenced to life in prison and remains incarcerated there. He appealed the conviction but was turned down by the high court in Nepal.

Biography books published: Julie Clarke & Richard Neville (1980). The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0-330-27001-X. Thomas Thompson (1979). Serpentine. Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-0749-6. Julie Clarke & Richard Neville (1989). Shadow of the Cobra. Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0140129373. Farrukh Dhondy (2008). The Bikini Murders. Harper Collins India.

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xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj Press Statement By Charles Sobhraj (Dated July 7, 2008)
Dear Friends of the Media, I would like to draw your attention to the continued persecution and assassination of my character by the Himalayan Times daily, repeated falsification of news with malicious intention and violation of all journalistic ethics and norms. I would also like to caution the newspapers, news agencies and television channels, which have been basing their news on the Himalayan Times reports, that they are utterly false and defamatory. My lawyers are filing a defamation case against the Himalayan Times in Nepals Supreme Court and a complaint with the Federation of Nepalese Journalists and Press Council Nepal. Anyone who uses the Himalayan Times reports without crosschecking facts will also face similar action. Here are the facts of the case, supported by evidence. A section of the media has been continuously calling me a serial killer without any evidence. I was never convicted of murder by any court. The current conviction by Nepals district court is now being heard in the Supreme Court and till the final verdict comes, remains sub judice. When my fiance Nihita Biswas refused to speak to the Himalayan Times which remains within her rights the newspaper began hounding her and her family and making false allegations against us.

the media has been continuously calling me a serial killer without any evidence. I was never convicted of murder by any court.

It says I am a bigamist who is married to a French and Australian woman. It is ridiculous since I cant be married to both. I married a French woman in 1969 but she divorced me in 1974. On May 17, 1974 the Tribunal of Nanterre in France issued the divorce decree. (I am also forwarding a copy of the document with the name of my former wife blackened out to protect her privacy). My ex-wife then married an American and had a daughter by him. These facts are also mentioned in the two books submitted to the Supreme Court as evidence by the prosecution Serpentine by Thomas Thompson and The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj by Richard Neville and Mary Clarke. The Himalayan Times also said that if I marry my fiance Nihita Biswas, I will be jailed since Nepals laws do not allow marriage between two people who have an age difference of 20 years or more. As per the 11th amendment to Nepals marriage laws, that is no longer valid. A girl can marry at 18 if she has her parents consent or can marry without consent if she is 20. Nihita is 20, has her parents consent to our marriage and, most importantly, we will be married in France according to French laws since I am a French citizen and reside there.
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xnepali.com, a booklet on Charles Sobhraj

Though my fiance pointed out the errors to the Himalayan Times and asked them to publish her letter and issue a correction, it carried a part of her letter as part of a report, making it appear as if she was being interviewed, thereby distorting facts before its readers. It repeated the allegations Monday, ignoring the existence of the divorce certificate and other official documents.

A girl can marry at 18 if she has her parents consent or can marry without consent if she is 20. Nihita is 20, has her parents consent to our marriage and, most importantly, we will be married in France according to French laws since I am a French citizen and reside there.

In the past, the Himalayan Times and its sister paper, the Annapurna Post, have faced a barrage of allegations about their promoters, source of funding, citizenship of their top brass and undue influence used to obtain a licence. One of their reporters was arrested trying to pass a suitcase full of money through the Tribhuvan airport and was jailed. Another faced the allegation of having received money during the direct rule of former king Gyanendra. The Himalayan Times, therefore, more than any others, should realise that allegations are not facts. Its continued persecution and falsification raises serious doubts about the professional competence of the newspaper, its integrity and impartiality. Charles Sobhraj July 7, 2008
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