A district court in Kathmandu, Nepal, has handed down prison sentences to two former government ministers found guilty of falsifying documents to allow Nepali citizens to be resettled in the United States under a Bhutanese refugee program, according to court documents and attorneys who spoke Wednesday.
The Kathmandu district court sentenced former Deputy Prime Minister and Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi to four years behind bars on charges that included offenses against the state, fraud, and participation in organized crime. Former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand received a two-year sentence as an accomplice. Both rulings were issued late Tuesday.
Rayamajhi remains in custody, while Khand has been released on bail. Neither man was reachable for comment. Both have previously denied any wrongdoing in connection with the scheme.
Dharma Raj Regmi, an attorney representing Rayamajhi, insisted his client was “never involved in policy making for the refugees” and confirmed plans to challenge the verdict through an appeal.
Khand’s attorney, Pankaj Karna, also announced intentions to appeal the ruling.
An additional 14 individuals were convicted alongside the two former ministers, including a former senior official from the home ministry and a former leader among the Bhutanese refugee community. Those individuals received sentences of up to four years, the court document indicated.
It remains unclear whether any Nepali nationals were actually relocated to the United States under false pretenses as Bhutanese refugees. The fraudulent scheme came to light in 2023, by which time both former ministers had already departed from their government roles.
The case stems from a long-running refugee situation involving approximately 120,000 Bhutanese nationals of Nepali descent who fled the neighboring Himalayan nation of Bhutan beginning in the early 1990s. Those individuals sought greater political freedoms in Bhutan, a majority Buddhist country with a population of fewer than 800,000 people.
Close to 113,000 of those refugees have since been resettled in Western nations — including the United States, Canada, and Australia — through an international third-country resettlement program, after Nepal and Bhutan were unable to reach an agreement on the refugees returning home. The United States alone has accepted roughly 100,000 of those individuals from Nepal.
Thousands of Bhutanese refugees remain in camps in eastern Nepal, still hoping to one day return to Bhutan.
The convictions come amid a broader push against corruption in Nepal. Last September, 76 people lost their lives during youth-led anti-corruption demonstrations that ultimately brought down the country’s government. A new administration backed by the Gen Z movement, led by former rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, 36, took power in March. Shah has vowed to pursue accountability for alleged corruption under previous governments.
