E-Kantipur

KATHMANDU, AUG 01 - Charles Sobhraj, whose sentence to life in prison was upheld by the supreme Court on Friday, had plans to go to Paris to meet his daughter in France whom he hasn’t seen since seven years.

“I will leave for Paris and see my little daughter. I missed seven important years with her,” Sobhraj told a journalist of the Times of India newspaper. The interview was carried in the newspaper’s online edition on Saturday.

Going by the interview, Sobhraj was hopeful he would walk out a free man. While talking, he seemed protective of his family. He said none of his family members ever came to Kathmandu all these seven years because he wanted to keep away from the media.

The only person in the eye of the storm is Nihita Biswas, his wife, 44 years younger than him.

“I asked her to stay away, fearing for her safety. She and her family have received threats. But she is headstrong…”

In the interview, Sobhraj made a mockery of Nepal’s judiciary and media, saying that it was based on prejudice and without evidence. “Nepal is the only place where I was found guilty of murder,” he told the journalist.

So what is the true Charles Sobhraj story then? Sobhraj said he will make shocking revelations once he comes out of jail. He likes the idea of a film with a sequel, devoted to corruption in Nepal. He said his partners in Europe and America are negotiating about the film.

Sobhraj claimed that neither Life and Crimes of Sobhraj nor Serpentine were authorised by him. He said he was convicted for the murder of Bronzich on the basis of the two books.

Sobhraj revealed that people with whom he was doing business had asked him to leave Nepal after a local newspaper carried a photo in 2003 about his stay in Kathmandu that eventually led his arrest.

“Had I wanted to escape, I could have done that a long time back,” he said. “But the media won’t stop crucifying me.”

Aussie traveller’s close encounter with Sobhraj

An Australian traveller, who reportedly sat next to Charles Sobhraj on a plance from Bangkok to Kathmandu on Christmas Eve 1975, on Saturday revealed his “chilling close encounter” with Sobhraj when the latter alleged to have killed American lady Connie Jo Bronzich and her boyfriend. 

Australian professor David Wimoth, speaking publicly for the first time about his encounter Sobhraj, said he was certain that Sobhraj was the man who called himself Alain and who invited him to dinner at the Hotel Soaltee Oberoi in Kathmandu and then for drinks in his apartment.

Even though the Australian Professor David Wilmoth was not called to testify at Sobhraj’s appeal against his murder conviction in Supreme Court, Wimoth has given police evidence that disproves Sobhraj’s claim that he was not in Nepal before 2003 when he was caught from Casino Royale.

Wilmoth said he had no doubt that if he and a woman he was travelling with had accepted Sobhraj’s invitation to travel with him into Nepal’s mountains they would have been killed.

“Twice Sobhraj sent his driver around to our hotel to pick us up but each time we declined the offer to travel with him,” Wimoth told The Sydney Morning Herald. ‘’Realising it was him, sent a chill down my spine.’’

It was not until years after his encounter with Sobhraj and his ex-girlfriend, Marie And-ree Leclerc, that he recognised him from a book.

He did not go with Sobhraj on the road trip because he came across as a small-time crook dealing in jewellery who was throwing his money around like a rich playboy. Professor Wilmoth has given Victoria Police a statement and documents, including his passport and a detailed diary note about his encounter with Sobhraj.

‘’Here he was, betting $50 at a time, while some of the others around the roulette were shaking with fear over bets of a few rupees,’’ he wrote. Government prosecutors had raised Wilmoth’s evidence, among others during the appeal at Supreme Court which also convicted of the murder on Friday. However, Sobhraj and his lawyers are telling the court that Wilmoth was lying about meeting him on the flight from Bangkok.

 

Posted on: 2010-08-01 08:46

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