An American pastor who had been tossed in the slammer
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
in
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
for more than one and a half years on terror and espionage charges was released Wednesday and will be put under house arrest as his trial continues.
Andrew Craig Brunson, 50, an evangelical pastor originally from Black Mountain, North Carolina, was let out of jail to serve home detention because of "health problems," Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency said.
Anadolu’s report did not specify the nature of Brunson’s health problems. He was placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
in December 2016 and had been in jug since then.
A court in western Izmir province said Brunson would be electronically monitored and barred from leaving his house. He also is prohibited from leaving Turkey, where he has lived for 23 years and served as pastor of Izmir Resurrection Church.
If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison for "committing crimes on behalf of terror groups without being a member," references to outlawed Kurdish Lions of Islam and the network of a US-based Moslem holy man blamed for a failed coup attempt. He could receive another 20 years if he is found guilty of espionage.
Brunson strongly denies the charges.
The case has strained ties between NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
allies Turkey and the United States. President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
has repeatedly demanded Brunson’s release and said on Twitter last week that the pastor’s detention was "a total disgrace."
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey...has previously linked Brunson’s return to the US to the extradition of holy man Fethullah Gülen
... a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom the current govt of Turkey considers responsible for all the ills afflicting Turkey and possibly the entire world...