![]() ![]() Although he tried to keep me off balance by, for example, driving me to an empty restaurant in the outer suburbs of Paris, he didn't seem scary. He was by turns funny, enigmatic, absurd and engaging. They typically have a background in crime and they tend to select their victims from a particular social group or demographic. There is usually also a psychological - rather than purely material - aspect to the killings, and perhaps a ritualised element too. Criminologists tend to define serial killers as people who have murdered three or more times over an extended period. There is a great deal of mythology surrounding serial killers and, indeed, the term itself is not exactly a scientific designation. To avoid that outcome, he escaped from prison and then allowed himself to be caught and sentenced to a term that would bring him up to 20 years - the statute of limitations on his Thai arrest warrant.Īll of which meant that in 1997 he returned to Paris, where I went to interview him for the Observer. On release, he was due to be extradited to Thailand, where he faced the death penalty for several murders. But he managed to avoid conviction for either of the killings, and instead received a 12-year sentence for the attempted robbery of the students. He was also charged with the murders of an Israeli academic in Varanasi and a French tourist in Delhi. ![]() He had been captured in 1976 while drugging 60 French engineering students in Delhi. I had last seen Sobhraj in 1997, just after he was released from two decades in an Indian prison. Both titles played on the Serpent, the nickname Sobhraj had been given by the press because he was cunning and slippery, capable of beguiling sang-froid and poisonous violence. In 1979 Thomas Thompson added an equally disturbing portrait with Later, he realised that the confession might prove problematic and denied everything he told Neville about the murders. The book was published in 1979, after the Frenchman of Vietnamese and Indian parentage had been on trial in India in 1977, when he thought the admission couldn't hurt him. The Life And Crimes Of Charles Sobhraj - later renamed And such was the richly implausible nature of his exploits that Sobhraj generated his own impressive literary testaments.įirst Richard Neville, the celebrated chronicler of the Sixties counterculture, drew an extended taped confession from Sobhraj in Like some bizarre real-life combination of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley and Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter, he was handsome, charming and utterly without scruple. Afterwards, he would steal their belongings and identities, often travelling the world on their passports and money.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |