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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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.
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