10/15/18 A court in Turkey has released a pastor from North Carolina who ' d been held under house arrest . The case of Pastor Andrew Brunson has been a priority of the Trump administration
and the subject of repeated talks and attempted high - level deals between the U . S . and Turkey . Brunson has lived in Turkey for two decades .
And in 2016 , he was arrested along with tens of thousands of other people after a coup attempt . He spent most of that time in jail before being allowed house arrest in July .
NPR ' s Peter Kenyon is in Istanbul . Hi , Peter . Hi , Noel .
All right , so a long case this one . What do we know about Pastor Brunson and the charges against him ? Well , he ' s lived for a long time in Izmir in Western Turkey . He ' s about 50 years old .
He ran a small evangelical church there . But then , as you noted , in September 2016 , he was arrested , charged with aiding terrorist groups ,
both Kurdish militants and this cleric that Turkey blames for that 2016 failed coup attempt . There are some who ' ve been arguing that Brunson was basically caught up in this massive purge of Erdogan ' s suspected enemies - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey .
And in fact , he was held at first in jail . And then in this year , he was transferred to house arrest in late July . He ' s always denied the charges .
There has been speculation that Turkey was hoping to trade Brunson for some Turks being held in U . S . jails . And Washington ' s been pushing for his release basically ever since he was detained .
What did the court say about why he was being released today ? Well , the court actually issued a conviction with a sentence of just over three years .
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