By DN Verma

The American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the United Nations is the "Single Most Important Global Institution."

Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer of CNSNews.com reported that Hillary Clinton in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Sept. 8, praised the work of the United Nations and said those high-sounding words about the world organization that has taken sides, denied justice, condoned terrorism and has now stood for a convicted criminal whose primary address must be a chain of prisons in various countries.

For now I am not commenting on various activities of the UN that have also helped in some ways with peacekeeping, aiding victims of natural disasters and issuing sanctions. Of course, some peace-keepers have resorted to unfair and wrong acts, some sanctions have not worked, some aid had fallen into wrong hands and used for wrong purpose, some actions have openly proclaimed partisanship. But that's not the subject of this article.

It is about the UN going to the help of a notorious criminal named Charles Sobhraj whose trail of crimes has crossed countries and continents, made into films and documentaries. He has been convicted of several crimes ranging from traveling on fake passports, drugging and bribing jail staff and escaping, to cheating and deception, and on top of all that, to several murders. He is in Nepal serving a life term confirmed by the Nepalese Supreme Court in July this year. The slick-speaking, polished Sobhraj also is reported to have several marriages, real or sham; his latest claimed to be with a Nepali woman 44 years his junior and defended by her and his new Mother-in-law in court. They too are likely to be jailed on some related charges.

This man named, Hotchand Bhaonani Gurmukh Charles Sobhraj, of Indian-Vietnamese and French connections. He was born to a Vietnamese unwed mother and a Sindhi Indian man who deserted his family, the woman then married a French military man who adopted Sobhraj.

Sobhraj has now, somehow, enlisted the support of the United Nations. The world body, ostensibly, has no business to interfere in legal criminal cases regarding a man with charges in India, Nepal, Thailand and Malaysia, and has done his bit in France also. He is variously known as The Serpent, the Bikini Killer etc. He has cheated, deceived and betrayed, bribed, drugged and managed to live in luxury in an Indian jail.

The question is how and why would the UN meddle in this criminal case?

In Kathmandu, where the Nepalese Supreme Court awarded him a life sentence, but according to reports from Nepal the man still has good reason to be upbeat. The UN has just given him a clean chit, supporting his contention that he did not get a fair trial in Nepal, and asking the government not just to release him but to pay compensation as well.

Now the 66-year- old Sobhraj is expecting the French government to endorse the UN decision and work aggressively to secure his release. He is reported to be expecting the UN to slap sanctions on Nepal if Kathmandu would not heed the world body's order.

The latest twist in Sobhraj's case came Sept. 8, as the Human Rights Committee (HRC) of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights forwarded an 11-page document to his French lawyer in Paris, informing her of the decisions it took during its 99th session in Geneva held between July 12 and 30.

The HRC took up Sobhraj's case after his lawyer, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, registered a successful complaint in November 2008, accusing the Nepal authorities of ordering her client's arrest and detention arbitrarily and sentencing him to life imprisonment following what she termed "an unfair" trial.

In Nepal, Sobhraj's lawyer-Mother-in-Law, Shakuntala Thapa, and his Nepali wife/fiancée Nihita Biswas are currently facing contempt of court proceedings for making almost same charges.

AFP reported the three things the HRC has highlighted: that Sobhraj was detained for 25 days without being allowed to consult a lawyer, that the trial in three courts were in Nepali though he does not follow Nepali and the state did not allow an interpreter, and finally, the prosecutors demanding that he prove his innocence when they could not prove him guilty of the murder of American backpacker Connie Jo Bronzich in Kathmandu 1975.

In the UN document, the HRC said, it considered Sobhraj's lack of access to an interpreter and lawyer violated the right to defense, principles of fairness and equality in criminal proceedings. Sobhraj had said that he was sentenced on the basis of media reports that dwelled on unfounded allegations of murders committed outside Nepal with police unable to provide a single evidence or witness that he was in Nepal in 1975.

The UN has also flayed Nepal for the long delay in the trial - that ran from 2003 to Aug 2010 -- punctuated with frequent delays and postponements: "The committee considers domestic remedies have been unnecessarily prolonged... (From) March 26, 2006 - 23 April 2010, 41 hearings scheduled. Most hearings were cancelled or postponed at the last minute without reasons being provided. The length of proceedings and high number of postponements and cancellations can't be justified."

The HRC has now given Nepal's government 180 days to provide Sobhraj with "an effective remedy, including the speedy conclusion of the proceedings and compensation."

Though the UN ruling spruces up Sobhraj's tarnished image, it is however doubtful whether Nepal will heed it, though it agreed to abide by the Covenant. In 2003, when the kingdom's image was at an all-time low, thanks to the Maoist insurgency and growing human right violations, the sensational Sobhraj arrest made Nepal Police gain stature in the eye of the world. Releasing him now would be tantamount to admitting their inefficiency as well as readiness to fake documents and mislead the court.

However, it's interesting how the UN goes all the way to help a notorious man who has resorted to several crimes in the book. The UN, normally, does not go to help convicted criminals and to do so for a man of Charles Sobhraj's notoriety is inexplicable. That only goes to show how vulnerable the United Nations has become in the face of relentless campaign by parties that have no concern for justice, moral code of conduct and legal system of other nations.