Kathmandu: Nepal’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the release of  notorious French serial killer after 19 years in jail on grounds of his age.

Charles, 78, has been doing his time in Kathmandu’s central jail since 2003 on charges of killing two American nationals.

Justices Til Bahadur Shrestha and Sapana Malla Pradhan ordered to arrange the prison management going back to his country within 15 days of his release.

Sobhraj, a Frenchman of Indian and Vietnamese parentage, was charged with using a fake passport to enter Nepal and killing two backpackers in 1975, US national Connie Jo Boronzich, 29, and his girlfriend Canadian Laurent Carrière, 26.

Charles was spotted outside a casino in Nepal on September 1, 2003 after a broadsheet daily published his photograph.

Following his arrest, the Nepal police had registered two separate cases against him on charges of murdering the couple in 1975 in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur.

(Santosh Ghimire is India Narrative’s Nepal Correspondent based in Kathmandu)