Kathmandu, August 23

A team of the Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police today brought Sanjaya Ismali Magar aka Bhagwan home from Saudi Arabia to proceed with murder charge against him.

Magar, one of the shooters in the May 31, 2012 assassination of then sitting Supreme Court Justice Rana Bahadur Bam in Shankhamul, was nabbed by Saudi Arabian police on March 24. He was in the custody of Saudi Arabian police, which handed him over to the CIB after fulfilling legal procedures as Nepal and Saudi Arabia have not yet signed an extradition treaty, officials said. The CIB team had left for Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

According to CIB, Ismali was brought home on an Air India flight via New Delhi at around 9:15am. He is in CIB custody for legal proceedings.

Though police had already nabbed six persons, including Megh Bahadur Thapa aka Babu Thapa, 38, then vice-chairman of Chure Bhawar Ekata Party, Magar, who is supposed to have masterminded the assassination, had been absconding and staying in Saudi Arabia.

On January 3, Thapa and his associates Karan Chaudhary aka Shiva, Premraj Khadka aka Nabin, Dipak Karna, Suraj Pokharel and Govind Uprety were arrested and made public. Khadka was released on bail by Lalitpur District Court, while others were sent to Nakkhu Jail on murder, and arms and ammunition charges.

DIG Hemant Malla Thakuri, CIB Director, said Magar, 28, of Khaniyapani-7, Ramechhap had fled to Saudi Arabia through a manpower agency on the pretext of foreign employment on November 14, 2014. “Magar used to work as a truck driver in the Gulf country until his arrest,” he informed. On January 6, Nepal Police had issued an Interpol diffusion notice against Magar for his involvement in the ‘high profile assassination case’.

Thapa allegedly orchestrated Bam’s murder to ‘exact revenge’ on the then sitting Justice after he lost a court case. A single bench of justice Bam, in 2009, had passed a verdict against Thapa in a case related to his party that had split in 2007.

Magar and Chaudhary had opened fire on Bam at around 11:05am when he was on his way to the SC after offering prayers at Bagalamukhi Temple. Two others — Bam’s bodyguard ASI Mahesh Giri and one of his friends Ram Giri — were injured in the incident. Thapa and Magar were arrested a week after  the incident, but were released for lack of evidence to establish their involvement in the assassination. Magar, a close aide to Thapa and a member of the party, had also contested the Constituent Assembly poll from Ramechhap-1 in 2008.