Asia Svengali

The Life & Crimes of Charles Sobhraj

By Richard Neville & Julie Clarke

(Jonathan Cape, UK, 1979)

19 September 2003: Nepalese police have arrested French serial murder suspect

Charles Sobhraj in connection with the killing of two young tourists in Nepal nearly 30

years ago. He was arrested in the Royal casino, Kathmandu. Sobhraj, 59, a

Vietnamese-Indian by birth, is suspected of involvement in up to 20 murders in a number

of countries across Asia in the 1970s. However, despite all the allegations against him,

Sobhraj has never been convicted of murder.

25 September 03: Notorious international killer Charles Sobhraj, being held in a

Kathmandu prison on murder charges, has been provided with a foam pillow, a bed,

meals from a local restaurant and mineral water, a police official said Thursday. He is

also being kept in a special room rather than a cell, the official told AFP on condition of

anonymity. "We have allowed Charles to use the officers' toilet", he added.

While in the Indian jail, he confessed to Australian writer Richard Neville that he had

carried out seven more "cleanings" Ñ murders Ñ of young backpackers during 1975

and 1976. Police in Thailand, India and Nepal believe he killed at least 14 people. AFP

Sobhraj with Neville in Delhi, 1977

CHAPTER 1

Late on a hot afternoon in Paris in July 1976, a middle-aged man in a crumpled

suit walked from his office and into the rush-hour crowds. He wore horn-rimmed

glasses and a distracted air. His hair was tousled and he carried a battered

briefcase. Alain Benard had been a corporate executive for fifteen years but

looked more like a classics professor.

The posters advertised suntan lotions. Blow-ups of bronzed girls in bikinis

beamed down on Benard as he jostled his way towards the Metro. It was nearing

the time of year when millions of Parisians would leave the city for their annual

summer holidays.

Benard sidestepped an old man bent over a pile of magazines; he was

cutting the twine from the bundle and stacking the copies of Paris Match on the

racks of the news-stand. Alain Benard's eyes followed the bright red cover and

he froze, DEATH RIDES THE ROAD TO KATMANDU, it said, but it was the dark

eyes glowering from the familiar face that stopped Benard in his tracks.

A cold,

arrogant face, but handsome. It was Charles Sobhraj. There was no mistake.

Benard bought a copy of the magazine and sat down at a pavement caf?.

`All over the world police search for these brutal killers,' read the photo caption.

`They slay young hitchhikers on the holiday road, so far -- a dozen victims!'

Charles was pictured in a pose Benard knew well. One hand was on his hip and

the other on a table scattered with dollars, his fingers curled backwards as

though made of rubber. Next to Charles, in the picture, was a dark-haired young

woman wearing sunglasses and leaning forward in a low-cut T-shirt. She looked

more attractive than Benard remembered her. He opened the magazine and his

eye was caught by a lurid comic strip. It showed his friend Charles enticing some

holidaymakers to a palm-fringed beach. His girlfriend stands against the tropical

moon, holding up a syringe. Next, two bodies are pictured lying on the sand as

Charles bends over one of them, robbing

it. His girlfriend kneels next to the body of a man in shorts.

This body is burning and the woman smiles as flames soar into the air. In the last

frame, the young couple peer demoniacally from the page as smoke billows

behind them

Benard felt sick, and told himself it was impossible, absurd. He turned the page and found a photograph of a girl in a bikini, her arms outstretched and her eyes closed. `An 18year-old American found dead in Pattaya,' the caption read, `probably a victim of the diabolic trio.' Almost against his will, his eyes skimmed the story: charred corpses in Katmandu covered with stab wounds, throats cut, necks broken, druggings and drownings, teenagers burned alive in Bangkok ... All the work of a mysterious 'Alain Gautier', now one of the most wanted men in the world.

Could Charles really have committed those crimes? Benard paid for his

coffee and walked toward the M?tro. He felt overcome by despair. Whatever

Charles might have done, Benard was certain that his gifted young friend could

not have wanted such things to happen. Charles had been born under a bad star,

he believed.

Alain Benard accepted it as a mystery - how his own life, the life of an orderly

and respectable businessman had become intertwined with that of an incorrigible

criminal whose career was sending the world's press into paroxysms of grisly

description. This friendship had begun in the normal course of events - perhaps it

had begun because the events of Benard's life were all too normal.

Ten years earlier, Alain Benard was taking a Sunday afternoon stroll through the

park near his home. He was 38 then, prosperous, unmarried, and bored. Primly

dressed children were sailing their boats in the pond, sedate couples were

playing tennis, and horses passed by at a leisurely trot down the leaf-covered

path. The air was sweet with the smell of freshly cut grass and suddenly the ease

of his cultivated life seemed sterile and cloying. The thought crossed his mind

that everyone lived in their own ghetto and that he, Alain Benard, was a man

trapped in a ghetto of privilege.

Above the swaying green of the poplars he noticed, not for the first time, the high

grey watchtowers of Poissy Jail. Behind those walls, he realized, lived those for

whom there could be no fastidious savouring of doubts in a Sunday stroll.

Many years ago Alain Benard's father, a commodities broker, had been a

volunteer prison visitor in Marseilles. On that Sunday afternoon in July 1966

Benard decided to follow his father's example. It would be a fair exchange. He

could use his legal training to help others and he would gain a passport to

another milieu. The next day Benard applied to become an official prison visitor

at Poissy Jail.

At first his part-time duties were simple: he advised Yugoslav construction

workers who had overstayed their visas; he patched up domestic affairs for

Corsican burglars; and on some weekends he would visit as many as fifteen

inmates, who were happy just to have someone to talk to.

Then the prison priest approached him about a special case. `I thought of you,

Benard, because this case needs an intellectual with a lot of patience. It's a

young boy, very bright, in fact exceptionally so, and a rebel. He seems to live in a

world of his own and refuses to come to terms with reality. But if he had a friend

to connect with him, and help him, I'm sure he could go a long way. Are you

interested?'

He was. Now that he was used to visiting the jail, he welcomed a

challenge. So on a wet October afternoon in 1966 the iron gates swung open and

Benard looking, as usual, slightly dishevelled and distracted in spite of his

soberly correct attire, waited for the guards to examine his pass and unlock the

second set of doors. He stood patiently, his hands in his pockets, with no great

expectations.

He followed a grey-haired social worker into the reception area. `I suggest that if

you agree to accept this case, Mr Benard,' she said, lowering her voice, `you

should do so only on one condition, a condition that we would ask you to regard

as inviolable. But that can wait. Five months ago Charles broke out of Hagineau.

Did you read about it?'

Benard nodded. Last May three prisoners from the psychiatric jail had

jumped over the wall after knocking out a guard and tying him to a radiator with

adhesive tape. `They caught him and transferred him here,' she said, striding

along the grey cement corridor. `It was a self-destructive act. Another month in

Hagineau and he probably would have got parole. Now he refuses to work and

will have nothing to do with his cellmates. He wrote to the warden here accusing

him of degrading the prisoners and then he went on a hunger strike for forty-five

days.'

She opened the door into the empty visitor's room. Benard was

accustomed to the place now, with its ugly green linoleum. `Don't let me give you

the impression that it is a hopeless case,' she continued as they sat down. `As

you must have gathered by now, it is our belief that there is no such thing as a

hopeless case. No case is lost! And the fact that Charles is so young and his

crimes relatively trifling, well, this is reason to hope.'

`And his background? What do we know?'

`He was born in Saigon to a Vietnamese mother, but his father is Indian. His

stepfather is French, an army man.' She paused. `So Charles is not technically

Eurasian although he has some of the same problems.'

Benard sat silently, polishing his glasses. She did not need to elaborate. The

growing number of Eurasians in France had popularized certain beliefs: their

pride quickly degenerated into arrogance; they disdained manual labour in case it

betrayed peasant origins; they were simultaneously attracted to and repelled by

things French; they nursed minor injuries and humiliations into a lethal hunger for

revenge; they revered intrigue more than courage because they believed it was

more effective; and, finally, that due to a neurotic focusing of their energies, the

Eurasians' intellectual level was invariably high.

`One of the fruits of our war come back to haunt us,' the woman said suddenly,

as if reading his mind.

Although it was twelve years since the French army had been routed by the Viet

Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Benard was well aware of the consequences

of his country's foreign policy in Indochina, where almost 8o,ooo French soldiers

had died. The Vietnam war, some people believed, had begun in Paris in 1858

when the politicians first ordered gunboats to sail up the Saigon River and

establish a garrison. For ninety-two years the French had profited from the

country's raw materials - raising revenue to administer the colony by

monopolizing opium sales to the Vietnamese.

`You never told me that one inviolable condition,' Benard reminded the social

worker.

`Well, it's this, Mr Benard. If you decide you want to help him, you would have to

stay his friend throughout.'

`Throughout what?'

`Throughout his life. Up to now, from what we can discover, he's been shunted

back and forth between parents and continents. It's made it hard for him to form

attachments. On top of that, he had to live through the war. If you come into this

boy's life as a friend and then disappear when it suits you, it would be much

worse than doing nothing. He needs a strong father figure. Firm, not judgmental.

Everyone else has judged him, this whole system,' she said, encompassing in a

gesture of impatience the small barred windows, the fluorescent light, the

ubiquitous ugliness. `He needs just one person to stand by him.'

They heard the harsh voices of the guards herding prisoners along the corridor to

the visiting rooms and the social worker got up to leave. `It's better if he meets

you alone,' she said, `as an individual. We'll talk again later. Good luck.' The

prisoners were locked into a long cell adjoining the visiting rooms. Benard

passed the guard the slip of paper authorizing an interview with the prisoner,

Charles Sobhraj.

The twenty-two-year-old who swaggered into the room was of medium

height, slim but muscular, and strikingly handsome. He had high cheekbones and

the black eyes in his sallow face seemed to notice and analyse Benard's every

physical detail. He shook hands and sat down, facing Benard across the desk

with a quizzical smile that made the older man feel that it was he who was being

received. For a moment, Benard was disconcerted.

`So, Charles, you've had some bad luck in life?'

`I'd call it bad justice,' he said. His voice was intimate, rich, and low.

`It must always seem that way inside a place like this.'

`I've already learned to live above external circumstances in life,' the boy said,

leaning back against the chair with his arms folded, staring.

`That's a stoical attitude,' said Benard, intrigued by the young man's intensity.

`Yes, the Stoics are my favourites, actually. Their ideas are much more useful in

my situation than those of the priests.'

`From my understanding of the Stoics,' Benard replied, `they teach the

importance of mastering desires, but you're here because you succumbed to

yours.'

`I stole out of necessity,' Charles said. `The authorities had ordered me out of

France, and I had no money. So, to drive across the border, I stole a car.' It was

said with such selfassurance that the action sounded reasonable.

`But if you admit the crime, where's the injustice?' asked Benard.

`Copping four years for trying to obey an order to leave France.'

`You could have worked for the fare, perhaps?' suggested the older man with a

smile.

`Without proper papers? I tried that. Peeling potatoes for four francs an hour.'

`What about your family?'

`I went to Marseilles to ask my mother for help. She just ignored me. She was too

busy with her new boyfriend, a colonel. In the end she gave me forty francs.

Forty francs to leave France!'

`So you don't get along with your mother?'

`For me, my mother is dead. I have cut her out of my life. I

expect nothing from her.'

`In that case, where will you go when you leave here,

Charles? What are your plans?' `To get back to my country.' `Vietnam?'

`Yes. My mother took me away when I was nine to this wonderful country where

I'm treated like shit. You know, Mr Benard, last time I was in Saigon I was

drafted. I'd still rather go back and fight than stay here.'

`So you're Vietnamese?'

`Officially, no, but Air Vice-Marshal Ky needs every man he can get, don't you

think? I have no nationality. My father was born in Bombay, but the Indians

refused to give me a passport. Anyway, as the Stoics say, it is better to be a

citizen of the world than of Rome. And when I get out of jail I will be kicked out of

France because I don't have a passport.'

`So it's because of all this indignation that you've got into trouble with the

warden?'

`No. It's because they won't leave me alone to study. They stick me in this hole,

so, at least, I should make the best of it. I try to deepen myself. Every day, you

know, I exercise - because however the circumstances change, my body is al-

ways with me. Sometimes they put me in solitary which, of course, I don't mind.

They cut off tobacco. So what? I don't smoke. They ban me from the cinema. I

haven't seen a film for nine months.' This list of adversities seemed rather to

cheer him.

`Is such self-discipline a Vietnamese trait?' Benard asked, polishing his glasses.

`It's not French,' Charles said with a chilly smile.

There was an impatient rattle of keys.

`It's a very interesting problem, a man without a nationality. I might look into it.'

`You're under no obligation to do anything for me,' the boy said, `and you know,

Alain, maybe you're a prisoner too - of your own guilt. Why else would you hang

around jails?'

Benard was amused by the boy's sophistry. `Convicted prisoners are driven by

unconscious forces, too, especially ones who keep coming back.'

`Yes. Clack! Clack! Clack! Since I was eighteen. This is my third French jail.'

The two men stood up as the guard opened the door.

Benard said, `I'll see you again next week - we'll have more time to talk.'

`Please yourself, but remember that I'm used to being lonely, Mr Benard.' He

lowered his voice dramatically, `As lonely as the bears in the mountains, and that

is how I shall always be.'

How unlikely, Benard thought, the boy has a talent for winning friendship. He had

never come across such conspicuous personal magnetism. `Is there anything I

can bring you?'

`I need nothing,' the prisoner called over his shoulder as he was led away,

`except books.'

In the weeks that followed Benard visited Charles Sobhraj every Saturday

afternoon and picked over his library to feed the prisoner's ravenous appetite for

psychology, philosophy, law, and executive training manuals. Sometimes he

boasted to Benard that he sat at his desk in the cell for nineteen hours a day,

poring through books. He hardly noticed the other prisoners.

He sought not only self-improvement, but an intellectual armoury - he wanted the

weapons, conventional and otherwise, to cut through the jungle outside, to carve

his path to the top. Socially Charles was on the bottom rung, without wealth,

nationality or education, and jail had added a fiveyear handicap. But he had

inherited one gift, the gift of charisma, of power over people. Charles decided to

build on this and to learn all he could about clues to their character; the better, he

thought, one day to mould them to his will. Palmistry, handwriting analysis and

characterology would help him penetrate other minds and would offer short cuts

in social relations.

As his friendship with Benard grew, so did Charles's requests. Benard was

relieved when the boy who wanted only books also admitted to simpler human

needs for chocolate toffees, stationery, and socks.

By the time summer was fading the young Vietnamese prisoner had become a

permanent fixture in Benard's ordered life. Every Saturday afternoon Benard

would visit Charles, just as every Sunday evening he would visit his own mother,

and in his spare time during the week he began to investigate the peculiar

problem of finding a nationality for Charles. Each Saturday he would explain how

his research had gone during the preceding week. He wanted to show the boy,

who was still cynical about his visitor's motives, that he was taking the case

seriously.

'I found out about the Stateless Person's Passport from the U.N. You aren't

eligible. There's a rule that you can't apply for one from the country in which you

are convicted.'

'To be officially Stateless, you have first to be sinless?' Charles commented.

'Apparently, but then perhaps it's for the best. After all, you're entitled to a

nationality, and I've written to the Indian Embassy.'

'They will say no, too,' Charles said. 'Each country will close its doors.'

'In that case I need to be armed for the fight. I must know more about your past:

documents, dates, where you were brought up. Can I write to your family?'

Charles was silent for a minute, affecting the faintly melodramatic gesture of

someone thinking deeply that Benard,. was becoming used to. ' I prefer not to

look back,' he said, 'but':, you can write to my stepfather Roussel in Marseilles

although'

you won't get much sense out of him. He's doped up on tranquillizers.'

`Can I write to your mother then?'

'No. She no longer exists for me.'

Benard argued with him without result and then suggested he should write to

Charles's father in Saigon. This triggered an impassioned diatribe:

`Before I met you, Alain, I must tell you that I was often close to suicide in my

cell. I stopped eating. I couldn't sleep. I was always depressed. That's why they

transferred me to Hagineau. After many nights without sleep, I asked myself,

"Why die now? Go to the source of your misfortune and see who's responsible." I

did, and it was my father, Sobhraj. And you know something, Alain? With this

idea, I felt better. I swore to myself for the future to have a new life, a pure life,

and overall, overall, to have revenge on my father. That's when I wrote to him this

letter.'

It was Charles's habit to bring a sheaf of papers to the visitor's room, usually with

lists of books or a scribbled page of introspection or poetry. He handed Benard

the letter he had written.

It is really unfortunate that you are my father. Why so? Because a father has a

duty to help his son build a future. You pray to God at the temple, but your

conscience is heavy. You bore a son, but you ignore him. You abandon him

worse than a dog, worse than for the lowest beast!!! From you I will carry only the

name you gave me. The faithful love I had for you, I have still, unfortunately. But I

will fight it. You are no more my father. I disown you. Live in your abundance,

enjoy it as much as you can. For myself, I have as my only treasure, bread and

water. But it's precious treasure because it fortifies me every day and gives me

the strength and will to hold me on only one target.

I will consume you. I will make you suffer. I will make you regret that you have

missed your father's duty. The fortune, I will get without you. And I will use it to

crush you.

When Benard put the letter down Charles said, 'There's a poem I wrote with it.

It's very short.' He recited it:

In the sunny country where you walk My abandoned self could also go If my body

had wings to fly Like my spirit has.

`That almost makes up for the letter,' Benard said. `Don't you think a life based

on revenge is self-defeating?' Benard's calm question did not betray how

shocked he was by the

attitude revealed in the letter.

`Maybe it's my Asian mind that makes it difficult to accept Christian forgiveness,'

Charles said, `for when a man has wronged you...'

`And you become obsessed with revenge,' Benard said quickly, `then you still let

him get the upper hand. You allow him to deform your psychology.'

Charles paused and looked up. `Okay, I agree. You can write to my father. Don't

say anything about where I am now. He is very conventional, a rich

businessman. And you should use the company's letterhead when you write, that

will impress him.'

Benard left the room feeling that he had made a break

through.

In the courtyard of Poissy jail three prisoners were decorating a Christmas tree

with the help of the social worker when Benard made his next visit, carrying a

present for Charles.

`So, you've taken the case to heart?' she called out, coming towards him.

`Even to my head,' he said, taking a worn sheet of paper from his wallet. `Do you

want to see the first letter I received from Charles?' Benard handed her the letter:

Dear Alain,

I am a being who has cried out, `O Lord, my God, why have you made me what I

am? You know, O Lord, that I only ask to love, to live. Why don't you grant this?

In order to prepare me for my destiny? But what is my destiny, O my Lord? Tell

me, give me a signal. Why was I born a being that the whole world despises, one

who could die without anyone shedding a tear? O Lord, I

have had only misfortune. Send me some happiness. You, who know the secret

of my soul, guide me, tell me what must be done. I don't know anymore what to

do.' For a long time, nothing, there was no answer. Then I knew he had heard my

cry, Alain, the scream of a drowning man. He sent you.

`You have got yourself in deep,' she said, returning the letter.

`Yes. I wasn't prepared for this. At least he's no longer bitter and suicidal. Who

knows how it will end?' Benard turned and walked down the grey corridor.

In the visitors' room a few minutes later Charles unwrapped his presents -- two

drawings of Jesus and one of St John. 'Alain, I will have these framed,' he said.

`What can I give in return? All I can offer you is my brotherhood, but, I promise,

that will be deep and eternal.'

Benard, who was embarrassed but touched by this declaration, told him that the

Indian Embassy had turned down the request for nationality. `They say you have

not lived there long enough.'

`Who wants to be Indian?' Charles asked. `Did you hear from my father?'

`Yes, he was glad to hear news of you.'

`Next time you write, Alain, could you ask him to send me some suits? You know,

he's a tailor.'

`Yes, and his letter was very warm towards you.'

`Even if he hasn't given me the love of a father, I suppose I must try to give him

the love of a son. I do believe in Providence, Alain. And one thing about prayer,

it's great to have someone to talk to, especially the Creator.'

`You already seem to be on intimate terms with Him.'

`What a waste my years in jail have been,' he went on, not noticing Benard's

remark, `and if I hadn't met you I would have lost myself in action on the outside.

To what good? Now I want to make up for those lost years. The warden has

given me permission to study a course in law at the University of Paris. Can you

get all the enrolment forms and textbooks for me?'

`Of course, Charles. It's good that you're looking ahead to

the day you come out, but we still have to sort out your nationality, and your

mother has all the papers. You must let me see her.'

Charles looked away and said nothing. Benard kept pushing, tactfully and firmly.

He could see there were tears in Charles's eyes when he finally answered, `All

right, Alain, if you think it is for the best. You have my permission.'

END OF CHAPTER 1.

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