Sobhraj clemency: Nepal govt to decide on serial killer's plea in 3 months

Nepal's Supreme Court has directed its government to decide on the jail waiver for notorious 'Bikini killer' Charles Sobhraj, who is currently serving a life sentence in the Himalayan nation since 2003 on account of murder.

A bench of Justices Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada and Bam Kumar Shrestha, on Sunday, directed the government to take the decision within three months responding to the writ filed by murder convict Sobhraj last November.

In Sobhraj's petition, the serial killer, who's now 74 years old, has demanded a 75 per cent waiver on his jail term.

The Senior Citizen Act of Nepal has a provision of waiver on sentence for senior citizens. However, the act says that senior citizens, who are 70 years old but are yet to turn 75 years old, can get clemency not exceeding 50 per cent of their jail sentence.

Another provision states that a court may, after factoring in the gravity of offence, choose to send a jail inmate having completed the age of 75 years to a care center.

Apart from the life sentence, Sobhraj was also awarded a 20-year jail term in 2014 after being found guilty of a second murder - a Canadian tourist Laurent Carriere, who was killed in 1975.