Kathmandu: Notorious serial killer Charles Sobhraj, a Frenchman of Indian and Vietnamese parentage who has been in Nepal’s jail for years, on Monday underwent a successful open heart surgery here.
Sobhraj, 73, was admitted to Shahid Gangalal National Heart Center on the outskirts of Kathmandu last week after doctors diagnosed leakage in a valve.
A medical team led by Dr Ramesh Koirala performed the nearly five-hour long surgery to repair the valves in his heart.
Sobhraj has not regained his consciousness yet. He is expected to remain in intensive care for at least four days.
According to a source at the hospital, Sobhraj was
scheduled to undergo heart surgery on Tuesday, but it was carried out on Monday.
His tricuspid valve has been repaired while his mitral valve has been replaced with an artificial one. All the expenses of the treatment was borne by the government, said doctors.
Doctors had advised him to undergo heart surgery after being diagnosed with serious heart problem. He agreed to undergo heart surgery only after doctors from his country also advised him to do the same.
Sobhraj had recently fainted in the Central Jail, Sundhara, where he has been kept in confinement for the last 12 years.
Nicknamed “the Bikini Killer” and “the Serpent” due to his skill at deception and evasion, Sobharaj is serving a life-term in the Kathmandu jail since 2003 for the murder of US woman Connie Joe Bronzich in 1975.
A life-term in Nepal means 20 years in jail. Even if Sobharaj completes the jail term another case is pending in a district court of Nepal to convict him.
He had been linked to multiple killings of backpackers.
Sobhraj spent 21 years in jail in India with a brief 22-day break in 1986 when he escaped Tihar Jail after drugging security guards, whom he had served sweets on the pretext of celebrating his birthday.
Sobhraj is believed to have killed 15 to 20 people in 1970s. Two of his victims were found wearing only bikinis. He befriended mostly Western tourists in Asia, later drugging and killing them mostly between 1972 and 1976.
