Frightened passengers watch in horror as butcher “The Serpent” escapes after being released from prison on serial killer charges

Frightened passengers looked horrified as the French serial killer known as “The Serpent” fled after being released.

Charles Sobhraj was released from prison in Nepal after nearly 20 years in prison for the gruesome 1975 murder of two tourists in Kathmandu.

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Despite links to at least 20 deaths, he was ordered to return to France within 15 days.

The confessed killer, who was portrayed in the hit series The Serpent, was pictured on the plane flying from Kathmandu to France surrounded by frightened passengers.

Sobhraj insists he is innocent of the murders of two backpackers in Nepal, for which he served 19 years in prison.

He said: “When I came in (went to jail) I didn’t do anything.

“I’m innocent in these cases, okay? So I don’t have to feel bad or good about it.

“I’m innocent. It was built on fake documents.”

He added: “The district judge wrote the verdict without calling a single witness … and without notifying the defendant to present an argument.

He continued, “I feel great…I’ve got a lot to do. I have a lot of people to sue. Including the state of Nepal.”

The Supreme Court had ordered Sobhraj, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, to be released for ill health, good behavior and having served most of his sentence.

Life sentences in Nepal are 20 years.

The verdict read: “Keeping him in prison continuously is not in line with the human rights of the prisoner.

“Unless there are other pending cases against him to keep him in prison, this court orders his release to date and his return to his country within 15 days.”

Sobhraj is linked to the deaths of up to 24 other people, mostly backpackers, between the 1970s and 1980s.

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He claims to have killed at least 20 young westerners traveling through Asia by drugging them to eat or drink.

But his 2004 conviction for the murders of an American woman, Connie Jo Bronzich, and her Canadian backpacker boyfriend, Laurent Carriere, was the first time he had been found guilty in court.

Sobhraj had previously been held in New Delhi’s Tihar maximum security prison for two decades on suspicion of theft, but was deported to France without charge in 1997.

He reappeared in Kathmandu in September 2003.