Andrew Brunson
Andrew Craig Brunson is an American pastor. Before becoming a lecturer in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, he was the evangelical pastor of a Protestant church with a congregation of 24 people in İzmir, Turkey.
Brunson was arrested in Turkey, where he has lived since the mid-1990s, in 2016 on allegations of spying and links to the Gülen movement and the PKK during the purges following the coup attempt against 65th cabinet of Turkey. In 2019, Brunson published a memoir.
On September 28, 2017, Tayyip Erdoğan made an unsuccessful offer to swap Brunson for Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen. On August 1, 2018, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned two senior Turkish government officials, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül and Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, for their role in Brunson's arrest. On August 9, 2018, US President Donald Trump announced increased tariffs on Turkish products. Erdoğan also raised tariffs on US products in retaliation.
On October 12, 2018, Brunson was found guilty of aiding terrorism by the Turkish authorities and sentenced to prison. He was released from Turkish custody and immediately returned to the United States.
Arrest
Andrew Brunson is originally from Black Mountain, North Carolina. He is married and has three children. Brunson lived in Turkey for 23 years where he served as pastor of the İzmir Resurrection Church in İzmir. Brunson, who was applying for Turkish permanent residency, was imprisoned on October 7, 2016, as part of the purges that followed the failed 2016 coup attempt. His wife, Norine, was initially arrested alongside him, but was released after 13 days. For a time Brunson was held with 21 others in a cell that was made for eight prisoners. He reportedly lost over while he was in prison. He was moved to house arrest on July 25, 2018.Indictment
The Turkish government primarily claimed that Brunson was a member of the Gülen movement, but also claimed that he worked with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, and claimed that he was involved with American espionage, among other things. In addition, they claimed that he was interested in overthrowing the Turkish government and that he supposedly helped plan the coup, which he denied.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu claimed that the case was triggered by a complaint from a translator. The Turkish government claimed that they didn't know about the case until the consulate addressed it.
The trial caused a major public diplomatic row between the United States and Turkey. The United States stood firm in its argument that the trial was unacceptable because the government "has not seen credible evidence Mr. Brunson is guilty of a crime and are convinced that he is innocent"., as the State Department said in a statement. The Trump administration insisted that the Turkish government free Brunson entirely. Turkey objected to this on the basis of this being an interference with the country's sovereignty.
Erdogan objected to the idea of interfering with the courts, arguing that he shouldn't on the basis that they are independent.
Hearings
In May 2018, a hearing for his case occurred in Aliaga that lasted eleven hours. The judge dismissed all of Brunson's defense witnesses without listening to any of their testimony.The prosecution used secret witnesses who "testified through video monitors that distorted their faces and voices in order to conceal their identities".
Sandra Jolley, vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom attended the case, and released the following statement:
"We leave the courthouse with serious concerns. Today's eleven hours of proceedings were dominated by wild conspiracies, tortured logic, and secret witnesses, but no real evidence to speak of. Upon these rests a man's life" She described the judge's decision not to allow any of the witnesses called by Brunson's defense to testify on his behalf as "simply unconscionable". The judge would relent in a later hearing. Hearings were held on July 13, 2018.
At his final hearing on October 12, 2018, several prosecution witnesses retracted their earlier statements which led to his release that same day.
Trial
Brunson was held for over a year without charges. Turkish prosecutors charged Brunson with involvement in the failed July 2016 coup attempt. Turkish media reported that Brunson had been accused of espionage and attempting to overthrow the government. He was originally charged with having links to FETÖ and PKK. The New York Times reported that two secret witnesses accused Brunson of "hosting Kurdish refugees in a guesthouse and holding services and gatherings sympathetic to the PKK". Brunson denied helping the coup, and denied he had intentionally had contact with either group blamed for the coup. He was one of 20 American citizens who were prosecuted in connection with the post-coup purges.Fethullah Gülen network ("FETÖ")-related
Court documents said that a photo of maqluba, a popular Levantine rice dish, was found on Brunson's phone. The court documents described maqluba as a "Gulenist delicacy". The Asheville Citizen-Times says that it mentions that Brunson's daughter, who was raised in Turkey, had sent the offending video of the maqluba to his iPhone, which was found by the Turkish government. The Turkish government alleges that it is eaten in Gülenist safe houses.According to Slate, "The case against Brunson is reportedly based on the testimony of an undisclosed witness, though reports vary as to what exactly the witness alleges. In one version, Brunson attended a Gülenist event. In another, he spoke positively once about relations between Christians and the movement." Brunson was charged with "membership in an armed terrorist organization", "gathering state secrets for espionage, attempting to overthrow the Turkish parliament and government, and to change the constitutional order".
Brunson contacted the chair of Amnesty International in Turkey, Taner Kilic, to ask about his residency permit nine times. Kilic would later be indicted as a member of the alleged Gülenist organization on the grounds that he allegedly had a particular secure messaging app on his phone, which he denies, and opening a bank account. Because of this, Brunson's prior contact with the lawyer was deemed retroactively terrorist in nature.
A secret witness claimed to have overheard a supposed "Israeli missionary" say that Brunson attended an alleged March 2013 event at an Istanbul convention center where the attendees supposedly plotted the Gezi Park protests. It was claimed that Brunson possessed a list containing information for gas station workers in Turkey's southeast,' 'railway employees,' or 'soldiers to get in contact with in relation to this supposed planning.
Another secret witness involved claimed that they could not understand what the information meant, possibly that certain locations were supposedly meant to be "logistics centers".
PKK-related
The prosecution claimed that Brunson was a collaborator with armed Kurdish groups, that he went to YPG territory in Syria, and that he wanted to Christianize Kurdistan and have it be a Christian state.Brunson claimed that he evangelized Syrian refugees without regard to their ethnic identity, and strongly denied the idea that he had any connection with PKK members.
The prosecution claimed that there was GPS data that placed him near the Syrian border. According to a July 2018 article in World by Aykan Erdemir and Merve Tahiroglu, there was a photograph that features both Brunson and a man wearing a yellow, red, and green scarf, which is presented as proof of his involvement with Kurdish nationalist terrorism.
It is claimed by the prosecution that Brunson published Kurdish Bibles. It is also claimed that he was part of an operation to help Kurdish families write asylum letters to Canada that strongly criticized the AKP and MHP.
US-related
The prosecution claimed that Brunson helped the CIA with the attempted coup.In relation to claims about Christianity, the indictment also made the claim that there was a so-called "Mormon Gang" within American intelligence.
It was alleged by one of the witnesses that Brunson's church was supposedly a waypoint for co-ordinates between the CIA and YPG due to alleged support for the PKK.
Brunson was accused of attending an event in a Turkish hotel where the American anthem was allegedly playing and several Turkish college students put their right hand on their heart and made vows, which the prosecution further alleges was some kind of "brainwashing" of these alleged students.
Christianity-related
The indictment also made many other broad claims about Christianity and the United States government that the Asheville Citizen-Times described as conspiracy theories.According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, the indictment contained a "lengthy discourse on the alleged influence of Mormons in Turkey". According to World, the secret witness was specifically concerned with English teachers at the nation's "military high schools". The secret witness also made claims about them missing fingers. Brunson is not Mormon, but is alleged to have LDS contacts, which they further allege is suspicious.
According to the Asheville Citizen-Times, it also contained an accusation that every church in the United States is connected to some organization with the acronym "CAMA", that "holds sway over" every one of them. The indictment also made the claim that every evangelical missionary and Mormon missionary who wants to leave the United States must have permission from this organization, indicating that they allege that it influences both. This group is unfamiliar to Christian officials within the ACLJ, who view it as an "unfounded" theory.
It was also alleged by the prosecution that there are websites on the internet that describe Turkish president Erdogan as the Antichrist, and the indictment almost suggests it as a motive for Brunson, a Christian, to help the coup plotters. The Citizen-Times argued that theory is most likely overshadowed by theories regarding more popular leaders, wildly obscure, and not likely to be widely believed in.