Nepal court jails 2 former ministers, 14 others over refugee scam

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU, July 15 (Reuters) - ‌A court in ​Nepal jailed ​two former government ministers after they were found guilty of forging documents to enable Nepali nationals to be resettled in the U.S. as Bhutanese refugees, ‌a court document and lawyers said on Wednesday.

The district court in Kathmandu ⁠jailed former Deputy Prime Minister and Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi to four years for offences against the ‌state, fraud and involvement in organised ‌crime. It also sentenced former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand to two years in jail as an accomplice, a court document showed. The rulings were handed down late ​on Tuesday.

Rayamajhi, who is in custody, and Khand, who is out on bail, were not available for comment. In the past they have denied any involvement in the scam.

Dharma ⁠Raj Regmi, a lawyer for Rayamajhi, said his client was “never involved in policy making for the refugees” and that he ​would appeal against the verdict.

Khand’s lawyer Pankaj Karna also said he would appeal.

Fourteen other people, including a former top bureaucrat in the home ​ministry and a former Bhutanese refugee leader, were sentenced ‌to up to four years in jail, the document showed.

It was not immediately clear if any Nepali nationals were sent to the United ⁠States as fake Bhutanese refugees. The scam was uncovered in 2023 when both men had already left government.

About 120,000 Bhutanese nationals of Nepali origin have fled the neighbouring Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to Nepal ⁠since the early 1990s, demanding more political freedom in the majority Buddhist country of less than 800,000 ​people.

Nearly 113,000 of them have been resettled in several Western countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, under a third-country resettlement programme after the two South Asian neighbours failed to agree on repatriation.

Washington ‌has taken about 100,000 refugees from Nepal.

Several thousand are still living in camps in eastern Nepal saying they want to return to Bhutan.

In ‌September last year, 76 people died in youth-led anti-corruption protests that led to the collapse of ⁠Nepal's government.

A new Gen Z-backed government ‌headed by former rapper turned ​politician Balendra Shah, 36, was elected in March. Shah has pledged to crack down on alleged corruption under previous administrations.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by ‌Kate Mayberry)

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