A woman, 50, suspected of being a member of the Islamic State was deported by Turkey back to Greece as part of a program to extradite “foreign terrorist fighters”.
The Turkish Interior Ministry on Monday issued a brief statement that a “foreign terrorist fighter of Greek citizenship has been deported today”.
The Greek side stated that the woman also holds Australian citizenship by marriage to a Syrian man.
Turkish authorities had found that both her Greek and Australian passports had expired when she had illegally tried to enter Turkey from Syria.
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The Greek Consulate in Istanbul issued her with temporary travel documents after being informed of the incident between October and November as the woman declared that she wanted to be deported to Greece rather than Australia. The woman claimed that she had relatives in Greece.
Sources from the Greek side state that there were no arrest warrants in her name, nor is she on a list of suspected terrorists and investigations are currently looking at possible involvement in terrorist groups of other countries.
Turkey has already deported 7,500 suspected members of the Islamic State according to statements made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who added that 1,149 terrorists are held in Turkish prisons.
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