A Nepalese court has sentenced 16 people, including two former ministers, for their involvement in a scheme that allegedly used forged documents to identify Nepali citizens as Bhutanese refugees in an attempt to secure their resettlement in the United States.
According to a verdict released by the Kathmandu District Court on Wednesday, former Deputy Prime Minister and Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of crimes against the state, fraud, and organized crime.
Former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand received a two-year prison sentence for assisting in the fraudulent operation. The verdict was delivered shortly before midnight on Tuesday.
Rayamajhi is currently in prison, while Khand remains free on bail. Neither has commented publicly on the ruling. Both men had previously denied all allegations.
Rayamajhi’s lawyer, Dharma Raj Regmi, said his client had no role in formulating refugee policy and confirmed that the verdict would be challenged in a higher court.
Khand’s lawyer, Pankaj Karna, also said an appeal would be filed.
The court also sentenced 14 other individuals, including a former senior official of Nepal’s Home Ministry and a former leader of Bhutanese refugees, to prison terms of up to four years for their roles in the scam.
Investigators have not confirmed whether any Nepali citizen was ultimately resettled in the United States under the false identity of a Bhutanese refugee.
The scandal came to light in 2023, by which time both former ministers had already left government office.
The case is linked to the long-running Bhutanese refugee crisis. In the early 1990s, around 120,000 ethnic Nepali Bhutanese fled or were expelled from Bhutan and sought refuge in Nepal.
Under an international third-country resettlement programme, approximately 113,000 refugees were later resettled in countries including the United States, Canada, and Australia, with the United States accepting nearly 100,000 of them.
Several thousand Bhutanese refugees continue to live in camps in eastern Nepal, with many still demanding the right to return to Bhutan.
