Simon Cox Blog: Turkey Lets Andrew Brunson Leave Prison

Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Turkey Lets Andrew Brunson Leave Prison

American pastor remains under house arrest until October. But good news comes day after his plight was shared at US religious freedom ministerial.

Yesterday, Andrew Brunson’s daughter described Turkey’s two-year persecution of the American pastor to the audience at the US State Department’s first-ever religious freedom ministerial.

Today a Turkish court ruled that Brunson should be moved from Kiriklar prison to house arrest in Turkey, a leader of the Turkish Protestant Church has confirmed direct to World Watch Monitor.

The same source confirmed that Brunson’s wife is on her way to the prison to meet her husband, and to ensure the Prosecutor’s order to release him into house arrest is quickly delivered to the prison.

Aykan Erdemir, a former member of Turkey’s parliament and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, confirmed that Brunson will remain in pre-trial detention until the next hearing, scheduled for 12 October.

Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina who has lived in Turkey for 23 years, has been on trial for terrorism and spying charges—of having links with the Fethullah Gülen movement, which the Ankara government blames for the failed July 2016 coup attempt, and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Turkish Hurriyet Daily News reported that “the Second High Penal Court in the western province of İzmir ruled on July 25 to move Brunson from prison to house arrest by imposing a judicial control decision.”

Hurriyet said the court had also banned the pastor from leaving Turkey.

The same Penal court had rejected an appeal to release Brunson in its latest hearing last week, 18 July, and decided to continue listening to the testimonies of witnesses in the next hearing. Western observers in the court told World Watch Monitor there was not one piece of evidence so far produced ...