KATHMANDU, June 12: Notorious criminal Charles Sobhraj has undergone heart surgery in Kathmandu. A medical team led by Dr Ramesh Koirala conducted the surgery on 73-year-old Sobhraj at Shahid Gangalal National Heart Center, Bansbari on Monday.
It took more than three hours for the team to conduct the surgery, according to the doctors involved.
According to a source at the hospital, the surgery was carried out a day ahead of the scheduled date on Tuesday. He was hospitalized last Friday after he complained of severe chest pain.
“His tricuspid valve has been repaired while his mitral valve has been replaced with an artificial one. He is yet to regain consciousness,” said Dr Koirala. “Though it was a major surgery, his condition is stable now,” he said.
Doctors had advised him to undergo heart surgery after he was diagnosed with serious heart problems. He agreed to the surgery only after doctors from his country also advised him to do so.
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French Embassy in Kathmandu and Sobhraj's mother-in-law Shakuntala Thapa requested Dr Koirala to carry out the surgery, according to sources. Nihita Biswas, wife of Sobhraj, provided blood to him.
Sobhraj, who is also known as 'bikini killer' has been serving jail term for the last 13 years at Sundhara-based Central Jail.
Sobhraj, a French citizen of Vietnamese and Indian parentage, was convicted in 2014 of the 1975 murder of Canadian backpacker Laurent Carriere.
The 73-year-old had already served life sentence in Nepal for the murder of US tourist Connie Joe Bronzich on the outskirts of Kathmandu in 1975.
The bodies of Bronzich and her friend Carriere, both repeatedly stabbed and burnt beyond recognition, were found a few days apart in two different areas of the Kathmandu Valley.
Sobhraj, who has been linked to a string of backpacker deaths in Asia in the 1970s, has always claimed innocence, saying he had never visited Nepal before being arrested from a Kathmandu casino in 2003.
Sobhraj had already served a 21-year sentence in India for culpable homicide before his arrest in Nepal. He had escaped from jails in Greece, Afghanistan and India.
