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Pastor Andrew Brunson, here on July 25, 2018 in Izmir, has been released and is about to reach the United States soon. AFP
In house arrest since last July after 21 months in detention, Andrew Brunson was released this Friday, October 12 and is preparing to return to the United States, signing the end of an affair that had heavily stretched already difficult relations between Washington and Ankara. US President Donald Trump ordered in August 2018 the doubling of tariffs on aluminum and steel imported from Turkey to protest the continued detention of this pastor. Portrait of the evangelical, who was liable to 35 years in prison.
After the response from Turkey , which had taxed American cars, spirits and tobacco more heavily, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already given signs of optimism on Wednesday (October 10th): " I am confident that [Mr. Brunson] and his wife will be able to return to the United States in a short time .
A pastor perfectly inserted at the head of a Protestant church for 20 years
Gray-haired, almost white-haired, wearing thin transparent glasses without branches, and often loose t-shirts, Andrew Brunson looks like an ordinary fifty-year-old. For 20 years pastor of a small Protestant church in a province in the west of Turkey, on the Aegean Sea, he is passionate about reading and diving.
Andrew Brunson has formed a very small religious community of about twenty faithful. Originally from a family in North Carolina, the pastor is described on the spot as not adept at a furious and perfectly inserted proselytizing, speaking in Turkish.
This father was at the center of a very vehement speech in the United States: Donald Trump and his very Christian Vice President Mike Pence have often referred to it as " our good Christian hostage pastor ". In Turkey, charges of espionage and terrorist activity have been contiguous to his name: he has been accused of having participated in the failed coup of summer 2016. Andrew Brunson was facing 35 years in prison.