US missionary thrust to the centre of Turkey-US crisis

IZMIR, Turkey: When Andrew Brunson saw a police summons on his door in late summer 2016, the US evangelical pastor thought it was a routine appointment to sort out his residency papers in Turkey, his home for nearly a quarter of a century.

He went to the police station on Oct 7, 2016, was detained and later charged with involvement in a coup attempt.

He is still in detention and is now at the centre of a diplomatic row that has fuelled Turkey’s most serious currency crisis for almost two decades.

"Obviously he was more than surprised" to be detained, Brunson’s lawyer, Ismail Cem Halavurt, told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Brunson lived and preached in Izmir, a city on Turkey’s Aegean coast near some of the sites of Christianity’s first communities.

At his first hearing in April, attended by Reuters, Brunson said he was "raising disciples for Jesus" in a country he deeply loved.

In July, after nearly two years in prison, Brunson was moved to house arrest.

A court on Friday rejected an appeal to release him, saying evidence was still being collected and he posed a flight risk, according to a copy of the ruling seen by Reuters.

US President Donald Trump has demanded Brunson’s unconditional release, describing him as a "great patriot hostage", and has slapped sanctions and tariffs on Turkey which have helped push the lira currency to record lows.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has linked Brunson’s release to the fate of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim cleric living in the United States whom he blames for the July 2016 coup attempt.

Erdogan has raised tariffs on US cars, alcohol and tobacco in a tit-for-tat response.

"You have one pastor as well.

Give him (Gulen) to us...Then we will try him (Brunson) and give him to you," Erdogan said in a speech last September to police officers in Ankara.

It is a suggestion Washington has dismissed.

The breakdown in relations between the two Nato allies has thrust Brunson’s case to international prominence and made the 50-year-old American the unlikely centre of attention in a currency crisis that has shaken global emerging markets.

Turkish courts have rejected several appeals for Brunson to be freed and allowed to leave Turkey. A senior Turkish official, asked about the case, said that the judiciary is independent and the verdict is up to the courts. Halavurt, Brunson’s lawyer, said the North Carolina pastor was not unduly alarmed when he first went to the police station.

He expected at worst to be given a two-week deadline to leave the country - standard practice with residency violations - and to return to Turkey when his papers were sorted out.