After a day-long confusion on Thursday over whether or not to release the French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, the Kathmandu Central Jail at last decided to postpone the release to Friday.

The jail administration, on Thursday evening, initially informed the national and international media representatives who had been waiting for hours outside the central jail at Sundhara that they would release Sobhraj within an hour.

But later, the prison administration said they would not be able to send Sobhraj to the immigration department as planned because it will take some more time for them to complete the paperwork for his release.

“All the procedures have been completed, and by 10 am tomorrow he will be handed over to the immigration department,” said human rights activist and Sobhraj’s lawyer Gopal Siwakoti ‘Chintan’.

“Due to his fragile health, the immigration department refused to take him on Thursday evening as they didn’t have a seperate detention room,” said Siwakoti.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday to release Sobhraj, a large number of national and international media representatives including photographers, and videographers had gathered outside the Central Jail, to cover his release. They had waited more than 10 hours for his release.

“The authorities said Sobhraj would be released at an early hour, we waited keenly,” said Bijay Rai, 40, a photojournalist associated with Nagarik daily. “And then they said he would be released at 2pm, but he wasn’t. Lastly, he was set to be released at 6pm, but that too didn’t happen,” said Rai. Like Rai, dozens of photojournalists returned empty handed.

The ‘bikini killer’ Sobhraj was jailed for the murder of American woman, of killing American citizen Connie Jo Boronzich, 29, and his Canadian girlfriend Laurent Carrière, 26, in 1975.

The Court had directed the prison management authority to free the notorious killer, and deport him to his country, within 15 days through immigration.

However, early on Thursday, the Department of Prison Management sought some documents from the Kathmandu District Court, to check if Sobhraj had to serve any additional jail terms for other cases separately filed at the district court against him.

The district court informed the prison department that he could be released based on Wednesday's Supreme Court verdict.

A division bench of justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Til Prasad Shrestha who had asked the government to arrange for his repatriation to France, concluded that the 78-year-old should be freed as he has already completed 95 percent of his jail term.

Sobhraj’s lawyers had long been demanding the court’s intervention for clemency. In different petitions they had demanded a waiver of his jail sentence, citing provisions of Clause 12 (1) of the Senior Citizens Act 2063.

Lawyers of the septuagenarian, on the ground of his age and fragile health, had filed a habeas corpus petition saying that he was qualified for remission of the sentence. Clause 12 (1) of the Senior Citizen Act states that elderly prisoners who have completed the age of 70 years can get a waiver of sentence not exceeding 50 percent, and the waiver is up to 75 percent for those who have completed 75 years of age. Sobhraj had also petitioned the President of Nepal for his release from jail.

Arrested on September 19, 2003, Sobhraj’s lifetime imprisonment would have ended on September 18 next year. The French citizen with Vietnamese and Indian parentage committed a string of murders across Asia in the 1970s.

Sobhraj, who has been implicated in more than 20 killings, served 21 years in prison in India for poisoning a French tourist and killing an Israeli national.

Senior Advocates Lokbhakta Rana and Rambandhu Sharma and advocates Shakuntala Thapa and Nihita Biswas had also pleaded on behalf of Sobhraj.