A Kathmandu court has sentenced two former Nepal ministers and 14 others to prison after convicting them in a case involving the alleged creation of fake documents. The documents were reportedly used to help Nepali citizens secure resettlement in the United States by falsely presenting them as Bhutanese refugees, according to court records and lawyers.According to Reuters, former deputy prime minister and energy minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi was handed a four-year jail term after being found guilty of offences including fraud, crimes against the state and involvement in organised crime. Former home minister Bal Krishna Khand received a two-year sentence for his role as an accomplice, a court document showed.The Kathmandu district court issued the verdicts late on Tuesday. Rayamajhi is currently in custody, while Khand remains out on bail. Both former ministers have denied any involvement in the case.Rayamajhi’s lawyer Dharma Raj Regmi said his client was not involved in decisions related to refugee policy and would challenge the ruling. “He was never involved in policy making for the refugees,” Regmi said, adding that an appeal would be filed.Khand’s lawyer Pankaj Karna also confirmed that he would move an appeal against the verdict.The court also convicted 14 other accused, including a former senior official of Nepal’s home ministry and a former leader representing Bhutanese refugees. They were sentenced to prison terms of up to four years, according to the court document.The investigation into the alleged scam began in 2023, when authorities uncovered claims that Nepali citizens were being falsely presented as Bhutanese refugees to gain access to a US-led third-country resettlement programme. It has not been confirmed whether any individuals obtained resettlement in the US through the alleged scheme.The case is tied to the decades-old Bhutanese refugee crisis, during which around 1,20,000 people of Nepali origin left Bhutan for Nepal from the early 1990s after disputes over citizenship, identity and political rights.Under a resettlement initiative launched after Nepal and Bhutan failed to resolve the issue through repatriation talks, nearly 113,000 Bhutanese refugees were relocated to countries including the US, Canada and Australia. Washington accepted around 100,000 refugees from Nepal, while several thousand remain in camps in eastern Nepal.The court ruling comes amid renewed focus on corruption in Nepal following last year’s youth-led protests that brought down the previous government.
