I’m watching NatGeo’s show, Locked Up Abroad. There are many stories of people going to prison in foreign countries for drug smuggling or something, then they escape to another country and are somehow free. Once escaping, why isn’t the new country sending them back to jail? And then they’re broadcasting their escape on TV… why can’t the original country they fled from, order them back to prison in their country?
For example, this guy escaped from a Turkish prison and went on Greek territory and was suddenly a free man. (Billy Hayes, the guy they made the Midnight Express movie on)
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> …why isn’t the new country sending them back to jail?
Every country is its own thing, with its own independent government. There is no world government or law that applies to everyone, so if the local government doesn’t consider someone guilty of a crime then they are free in that territory. The country they escaped from has zero authority in the new country.
Now there can be agreements between countries for things like extradition where they will arrest and send people back to a country to face prosecution or punishment, but that is done on an individual basis by countries which are diplomatically close. If Greece doesn’t particularly like Turkey and doesn’t have extradition then someone who escaped from Turkey’s legal system is free in Greece.
> …why can’t the original country they fled from, order them back to prison in their country?
To reiterate, they have no authority in other countries.
Some countries have extradition treaties that say if they catch a person wanted in the other country, then they’ll send them back, but not all countries have such arrangements.
Simply put, there are no international laws governing the extradition of alleged criminals. Each nation has its own laws and rules governing such things. Each nation can request that a person be turned over, and each nation can refuse to turn over such people, but there is nothing forcing a government to turn over an alleged criminal to another nation.
Each country has different laws, but the more important part here is one country’s laws and demands will have limited and varying weight in another country.
Using your example, Turkey can’t exactly march police or some other military or law enforcement branch onto Greek soil and forcibly and likely violently apprehend and drag back or execute someone who escaped their prison or is wanted for crimes. Greece would have serious issues with that which would get politics and military involved. Instead depending on how good relations are between the two countries, Turkey could instead ask permission to go onto Greek soil and get their convict, or much more commonly, Turkey would ask Greece to apprehend the convict for them and ship them back to Turkey and the wanted person would resume court/prison stuff in Turkey. The latter is known as Extradition. However if the two countries are not on good terms, or don’t have easy communication between law enforcement bodies, extradition may be difficult or impossible, and that leaves the home country of the wanted person kind of stuck in terms of what they can easily and publicly do.
Of course even then its not exactly smooth sailing. The escaped person generally loses everything they own from their home country and effectively even their legal identity in a way and can never return except in extreme cases of pardons, which makes it very hard as you are starting over from literally nothing. Additionally, if the crimes you are wanted for or committed are super serious, the home country is still likely watching you like a hawk and is after you, they just are going to be more subtle and sneaky about apprehending or just outright killing you. Finally Just because your new country of residence doesn’t do extraditions to your home country doesn’t mean they are happy to have you. Your very reason for being there largely means you are already on thin ice with them by default.
Countries cant even agree on what the laws are, let alone what the punishments should be.
A good example is Treason, say you get arrested in North Korea for Treason, and you manage to escape to the US. Whatever “treason” you may have committed is almost certainly irrelevant to the US. And if NK asks the US “Hey, send us back our traitor!” The US replies “Get Bent.” and ignores it.
So in general, once you escape the country you are wanted in, you are free. No other country recognizes the crime, or has a record of it.
Now, this is the general case, there are specific cases called extradition treaties where two countries agree on what they both consider illegal and under what circumstances they will “export” criminals. Generally it is mutual.
But, each pair of countries has to sign a treaty.
I cant find any information about Turkeys Extradition treaties, but I would guess they just dont have one with Greece (or at the time of the show)
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