Erdogan wants more from Trump before Turkey will free pastor
Amberin Zaman July 18, 2018
Defying expectations, a Turkish court rebuffed appeals today to free Andrew Brunson, the US evangelical pastor whose trial on bogus terror charges has become a litmus test for turbulent ties between Turkey and the United States. The trial was adjourned until Oct. 12.
The North Carolina pastor has been charged with espionage and links to coup plotters and Kurdish militants and could face up to 35 years if convicted.
Brunson continued to deny any wrongdoing in his third courtroom hearing, amid a string of wild assertions from witnesses for the prosecution. “I am an innocent man on all these charges. I reject them. I know why I am here. I am here to suffer in Jesus’ name,†Brunson said.
One of the witnesses, Murat Camdan, said he had converted to Christianity over a decade ago and knew Brunson personally. He said he had observed “mind-boggling scenes†at a church in Izmir. He said the initials of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party — PKK — were inscribed on three Bibles and rituals were held before the corpses of PKK fighters mourned as “martyrs who had died for their country.†Camdan claimed he witnessed all of this at a "Kurds-only" church Brunson allegedly founded alongside the Resurrection Church in Izmir, where he led a tiny flock for years. The testimony mirrors the prosecutor’s indictment, which suggests, among other things, that a Middle Eastern food recipe found on Brunson’s cellphone is proof of his culpability.
Hopes had been high that the 50-year-old who has been held in the Western province of Izmir since October 2016 would be freed pending the outcome of the trial, in part due to the personal chemistry between President Donald Trump and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Their mutual warmth was most recently on display at last week’s NATO summit in Brussels, where the pair fist-bumped and Trump reportedly credited Erdogan with doing things “the right way.â€
Read more:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/07/andrew-brunson-remains-prison-turkey.html#ixzz5Ljx5xCzc
