Former deputy prime minister Top Bahadur Rayamajhi was released from Dillibazar prison on Thursday after the Kathmandu District Court reduced his prison sentence under legal provisions for senior citizens.
Rayamajhi, who is 65, qualified for a 25 percent reduction in his sentence. The court cut his four-year prison term by one year to three years and directed prison authorities to release him through a revised prison warrant.
Dillibazar prison officials said they had received the revised warrant before the Tihar festival and released him on Thursday morning.
Rayamajhi was arrested on May 14, 2023, for his alleged involvement in a scheme that duped Nepalis seeking to migrate to the United States by falsely promising to register them as Bhutanese refugees eligible for third-country resettlement.
The Kathmandu District Court convicted him on July 7, 2026, of fraud, organised crime and offences against the state. It sentenced him to four years in prison and fined him Rs40,000.
The case, one of Nepal’s biggest criminal scandals involving political leaders and senior government officials, exposed an organised network that collected millions of rupees from aspiring migrants by using forged government documents and fake refugee identities.
In its full verdict, the court also ordered Rayamajhi to repay Rs4 million to victims. Eight defendants were ordered to return a combined Rs153.8 million to 59 victims, while 53 of the 112 people who had filed police complaints were left without compensation.
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