Press Release
17 February 2018

Maina Sunuwar’s Case: 14 years of Impunity

In April 2017, after a 13-year-long legal battle the Kavrepalanchowk (Kavre) District Court convicted three soldiers namely Babi Khatri, Sunil Prasad Adhikari and Amit Pun involved in the murder of Maina Sunuwar.1 While the Court acquitted a fourth soldier namely Major Niranjan Basnet, who is still serving the army, three were given sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment.

However, the Nepal army in September 2017 filed the petition in the Supreme Court to vacate the decision of the District Court. The army has claimed: (1) that the principle of double jeopardy was violated, on the argument that the army has already prosecuted the three convicted officers, (2) that the case comes under the jurisdiction of the Transitional Justice system rather than the criminal justice system, and (3) that as the incident took place under a military operation and therefore military rules should be applied. The petition also argues that all other conflict era cases should not be placed under the jurisdiction of the Court.