French citizen Charles Sobraj was deported by Immigration to prevent him from entering Nepal for 10 years

Kathmandu – The government has expelled Charles Sobharaj, a French citizen who has been serving his sentence in a Nepalese prison for nearly 2 decades on charges of murder, so that he will not be able to enter Nepal for 10 years.

On the recommendation of the Immigration Department, the Ministry of Home Affairs decided on Friday to send Sobharaj to France so that he cannot come to Nepal until 2089. With this decision of the home, it has been decided that Sobharaj will be sent to France on Friday.

For that, officials of the Immigration Department coordinated with the officials of the French Embassy in Nepal and Sobraj’s lawyers. After that, the immigration has prepared a travel document in the name of Sobraj for deportation.

In Section 6.3 of the Immigration Procedures 2065, the Immigration Department has been given the authority to bar foreign prisoners involved in murder and drug dealing from entering Nepal for 10 years. According to the same provision, Sobharaj was banned from coming to Nepal for 10 years and expelled. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Fanindramani Pokharel, said that according to the immigration law, Sobharaj was banned from entering Nepal for 10 years and the decision was made to expel him from the country. With this decision, Sobharaj will be deported today, spokesperson Pokharel informed.

On Friday, the Central Jail Administration released Sobraj, who had served more than 19 years of his sentence, and handed him over to the Immigration Department. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ordered the government to release Sobraj and send him back to his country within 15 days. The next day Thursday, the Bhaktapur and Kathmandu courts allowed the prison administration to release them as per the order of the Supreme Court.

However, the process of release was prolonged while understanding whether there was/wasn’t any case against him in other courts. Only later, after it was confirmed that there was no case against him in courts other than Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, the release process was started on Friday.

Accordingly, the immigration department completed the legal process and sent the deportation file to the home for approval, so the home approved the department’s file. Now after receiving the signal that he will be released, his aides have booked a ticket for Sobraj on Qatar Airways flight QR 647 which is scheduled to fly at 6 pm on Friday.

Sobraj was arrested from Kathmandu in 2060 for the murder of two foreign nationals in Bhaktapur.

“Shobraj came to Nepal to avoid committing crimes abroad, there was no evidence against him in Nepal about the Bhaktapur incident and he came to Nepal with the intention of escaping in a planned manner, then he was planning to stay in Nepal and spread sensation about the crime world,” says a former IGP who knows about Sobraj’s crimes. .

The former IGP said, “At that time, the incident that he was in Nepal also turned out dramatically, but due to the careful and smart investigation of the police, he could not escape from the previous crime.”

Since Sobraj was arrested, various efforts were made to release him, but after being convicted by the court, he has spent almost two decades in Nepal’s prison. On Wednesday, the bench of Supreme Court judges Sapna Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha ordered the government to make arrangements for him to return to his country within 15 days while hearing the petition for his latest arrest.

The Bhaktapur District Court found Sobraj guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment (20 years imprisonment) for the murder of American citizen Connie Joe Bronchich and Canadian citizen Carriere Laurent in Bhaktapur in 2032.

The decision of the Bhaktapur court was upheld by the Supreme Court on July 14, 2067. Sobraj, who absconded after killing two foreigners, was arrested from Kathmandu on October 2, 2060, 28 years after the incident. After that, the murder case involving him was dismissed.

Sobraj, who is serving his sentence in the same case, has to be imprisoned till October 1, 2080, but the Supreme Court ordered his release, except for the case of the Bhaktapur murder case, with exemptions given in accordance with the prison rules in cases such as old age and chronic illness.