The criminal case against American pastor Andrew Brunson remains pending before Turkey’s top appeals court nearly six years after a regional court upheld his conviction, even as US President Donald Trump again cited the case at the NATO summit in Ankara as proof of his ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Trump, speaking after meetings in Ankara, recalled Brunson’s detention and said he had called Erdoğan and secured the pastor’s release without paying anything. Trump also described Brunson as an evangelical hero.
Brunson, a pastor from North Carolina who had lived in Turkey with his wife since 1993, led the İzmir Resurrection Church when he was arrested in the aftermath of a failed coup in July 2016. Turkish prosecutors accused him of helping the faith-based Gülen movement and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He denied the charges and said his work in Turkey was religious, not political.
The Gülen movement, inspired by the views of the late Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, was designated as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government in May 2016, a designation not recognized by the United States, the European Union or major international bodies.
The government accuses the movement of orchestrating the failed coup in July 2016. Gülen, who died in 2024, and his followers strongly denied involvement.
A case still open
The İzmir 2nd High Criminal Court convicted Brunson on October 12, 2018, of aiding a terrorist organization without being a member and sentenced him to more than three years in prison. The court did not convict him of espionage and lifted his house arrest and travel ban the same day, allowing him to leave Turkey after time already served.
Both Brunson’s lawyers and the prosecutor appealed. The İzmir Regional Court of Justice upheld the ruling on January 9, 2020, sending the case to the Supreme Court of Appeals, Turkey’s top appeals court. The file remains before the court’s 3rd Criminal Chamber, which has not issued a final ruling, Deutsche Welle’s Turkish edition reported Thursday.
That means Brunson’s case is not formally closed under Turkish law, despite his departure and the political settlement that ended the diplomatic crisis.
Brunson also took his case to the Constitutional Court. The court rejected part of his application over time limits and found his claims over house arrest and a travel ban inadmissible.
A dispute that hit the lira
The Brunson case became one of the sharpest disputes between Ankara and Washington during Trump’s first term in office. The US Treasury sanctioned then-justice minister Abdulhamit Gül and then-interior minister Süleyman Soylu in August 2018, accusing them of roles in Brunson’s detention. Washington also raised tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum, measures that came as the Turkish lira was already under pressure.
The currency crisis deepened as Turkish courts rejected Brunson’s requests for release and Trump threatened more measures. The case had become a flashpoint that accelerated a growing currency crisis.
Erdoğan resisted US pressure in public. In 2017 he suggested a swap involving Gülen. The United States did not extradite him.
After the October 2018 ruling, Brunson returned to the United States and met Trump at the White House. Trump’s new remarks in Ankara revived a case that is often cited by Turkish opposition figures and rights advocates as an example of how courts issue rulings at Erdoğan’s behest.