My understanding is that Britain (or any country) has to accept its criminal citizens back, but if, as here, there is dual citizenship, then one country can quickly strip the criminal of citizenship, effectively forcing the other country to take the criminal back and sort them out. There is usually a ‘race’ between the two countries to strip the criminal of citizenship, as whoever does it first gets to leave the other country with the problem. They aren’t allowed to both strip the criminal’s citizenship, because that is to make someone stateless, which is against international law.
So basically it is most countries’ policy, if it discovers an overseas criminal who has dual citizenship, to strip citizenship asap. Britain did what it and most governments usually do. It was done particularly fast because if she gave birth while still British, her child would be British but innocent, which would complicate things.
Here she was both British and Bangladeshi (although had never applied for a Bangladeshi passport, she was born a Bangladesh citizen). So Britain stripped her of British citizenship before Bangladesh noticed her, making her Bangladesh’s responsibility. But Bangladesh illegally refused to accept her back, making her stateless.
I know she was groomed, brainwashed and radicalised and I feel sorry for her, but Britain was following standard policy. Bangladesh should help her get to Bangladesh and then arrest and sentence her. She’s aready served a longer sentence than she would probably get for her very minor role as a soldier’s wife.
I do think too much weight had been placed on the things she said in that tv interview. She was in a prison camp filled with ISIS prisoners and at the time had a baby to think about. She couldn’t exactly say ‘I hate ISIS and I wish I never came here,’ she and her child would have been murdered by the other prisoners. I think the journalist who interviewed her and broadcast her remarks was pretty unethical. If she’d stayed below the radar (or if the journalist had simply informed her family and they spoke to a lawyer who informed the Bangladesh authorities thus enabling Bangladesh to strip her Bangladeshi citizenship first), she would have been deported to Britain and in a better but also more appropriate position.
She was radicalised in Britain following failures by Britain and by her family. Why is it so easy to see terrorist material on the internet here? You can’t in Dubai or China, they don’t allow this kind of polluting propaganda onto their servers... Why do our media talk of ‘honour killings’ and ‘jihad’ when they should be using words like ‘murder’? Britain’s total lack of control over its media and failure to regulate the internet/ child access to it, played a part in her ending up where she has. There is moral, though not legal, responsibility.