Kathmandu, April 4:

Police personnel from the Kathmandu District Police Office (KDPO), Hanumandhoka, have taken 16 foreign nationals in custody on different criminal charges over the past three-and-a-half years, a KDPO report said.

“A total of 16 foreigners were taken in custody, some also in judicial custody, in the last three-and-a-half years,” a police official at the Litigation Section of the KDPO, said. “We do not have records of those arrested on old charges,” the official said, but that number might be very low, he added.

According to him, the KPDO has only recently started keeping records of the detained foreigners. “We do not have the record of arrests made before August, 2003,” he said.

According to the report, four Nigerians, three South Africans, two Pakistanis, and one person each from China, Japan, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Germany, Cameroon and Ghana are currently in custody on criminal charges.

Four of them are charged with dealing in fake currency, five with drug smuggling, three with forgery and two on cheating charges.

“The legal procedures to be followed while dealing with foreign nationals is tricky,” Ganesh KC, deputy superintendent of police at the KDPO, said, adding, foreign convicts usually change their statements when produced in court.

“Most of the times, they are silent during police interrogation. Moderators are also needed sometimes,” KC said.