Ex-Nepalese Dy PM, former Home Minister convicted in fake Bhutanese refugee scam

Kathmandu: A lower court in Nepal has convicted the country’s former Deputy Prime Minister, Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand, and 14 others in the fake Bhutanese refugee scam that rocked Nepal’s political establishment three years ago.

The Kathmandu District Court found them guilty of conspiring to send Nepali citizens to the United States by disguising them as Bhutanese refugees.

Although the third-country resettlement of Bhutanese refugees concluded in 2016, the accused allegedly deceived Nepali citizens by promising to send them to the US under the pretext of additional Bhutanese refugee quotas.

Kathmandu District Court Judge Tej Bahadur Khadka convicted the defendants of forgery, fraud, organised crime, and offences against the state, depending on the nature of the charges and each defendant’s role in the scheme.

Along with Rayamajhi and Khand, those convicted include former home secretary Tek Narayan Pandey; members of the scam network Keshav Dulal, Sanu Bhandari, Sagar Rai, Sandesh Sharma, and Indrajit Rai, the security adviser to then home minister Ram Bahadur Thapa.

Also convicted were Govinda Chaudhary; former Nepali Congress lawmaker Angtawa Sherpa; Shamsher Miya, then chair of the Haj Committee; Narendra KC, personal secretary to then home minister Khand; alleged middleman Hari Bhakta Maharjan; and Niranjan Kumar Kharel.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Rayamajhi and former Home Secretary Tek Narayan Pandey have also been found guilty of organised crime. Former Home Minister Bal Krishna Khand has been convicted as an accomplice in fraud and organised crime.

The Kathmandu District Court’s order states that former Home Minister Khand was convicted as an accomplice in organised fraud. Although the court found no evidence that he had personally received any money, it held that he had acted under the network’s undue influence and helped facilitate the fraud.

The court has yet to determine the sentences. A hearing has been scheduled for July 13 to decide the penalties.

Describing the case as an offence against the state, the court observed that those responsible for the scam had directly undermined the dignity of Nepali citizens and damaged Nepal’s international reputation.

Of the 30 individuals originally charged in the case, the court acquitted seven, ruling that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges against them, while keeping the cases against the remaining absconding defendants in abeyance.

The court further ruled that the case constituted organised crime because the fraud involved the coordinated participation of politicians, bureaucrats, government employees, and middlemen.

“The offence of organised crime has been established because the coordinated scheme involved political figures, administrators, government employees and middlemen, who collectively defrauded victims of large sums of money by falsely promising to send them to the United States as Bhutanese refugees. Such acts cannot be regarded as ordinary fraud committed by individuals,” the order states.

The court also found evidence of forgery. “It has been established that the offence of forgery was committed, as the fake report altered and added to the contents of the original report. Evidence was also found that counterfeit identity cards identifying individuals as Bhutanese refugees had been issued,” the order says.

Over 100,000 Bhutanese refugees had been living in various refugee camps in Nepal since the late 1980s following the alleged ethnic persecution of the Nepali-speaking minority in Bhutan.

Between 2007 and 2016, around 113,000 Bhutanese refugees were resettled in eight countries, primarily the United States. Only a small number who chose not to be resettled in third countries remained in Nepal, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Subsequently, a scam was hatched to send Nepali citizens to the United States by falsely claiming they were among the remaining Bhutanese refugees eligible for resettlement, with the involvement of senior political figures.

IANS