Posted on 07/19/2018 2:25:46 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
Defying expectations, a Turkish court rebuffed appeals today to free Andrew Brunson, the US pastor whose trial on bogus terror charges has become a litmus test for turbulent ties between Turkey and the United States. The trial was adjourned until Oct. 12.
The North Carolina pastor has been charged with espionage and links to coup plotters and Kurdish militants and could face up to 35 years if convicted.
Brunson continued to deny any wrongdoing in his third courtroom hearing, amid a string of wild assertions from witnesses for the prosecution. “I am an innocent man on all these charges. I reject them. I know why I am here. I am here to suffer in Jesus’ name,” Brunson said.
One of the witnesses, Murat Camdan, said he had converted to Christianity over a decade ago and knew Brunson personally. He said he had observed “mind-boggling scenes” at a church in Izmir. He said the initials of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party — PKK — were inscribed on three Bibles and rituals were held before the corpses of PKK fighters mourned as “martyrs who had died for their country.” Camdan claimed he witnessed all of this at a "Kurds-only" church Brunson allegedly founded alongside Resurrection Church in Izmir, where he led a tiny flock for years. The testimony mirrors the prosecutor’s indictment, which suggests, among other things, that a Middle Eastern food recipe found on Brunson’s cellphone is proof of his culpability.
Hopes had been high that the 50-year-old who has been held in the Western province of Izmir since October 2016 would be freed pending the outcome of the trial, in part due to the personal chemistry between President Donald Trump and Turkey’s Erdogan. Their mutual warmth was most recently on display at last week’s NATO summit in Brussels..
(Excerpt) Read more at al-monitor.com ...
The author was born in New York City to a Turkish family and is married to Joseph Pennington, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq. They reside in the U.S.
Erdogan can suck it.
Anyone who goes to Turkey these days frankly is an idiot.
...Erdogan wants more from Trump before Turkey will free pastor...
How about a Cruise Missile through his bedroom window?
...a boot up his a$$.
O’Bunghole would be loading a plane with cash right now.
Opps O’Bunghole is a Moosling, forget it.
Turkey wants ransom for kidnapped pastor.
Why not 2 of them?
How about 48 more hours.
Is that enough?
Yup. All these do-gooders go to third world sh1tholes, get arrested and then whine about it... asking uncle sugar for help. They should go to nice civilized countries like Sweden and get mugged and raped by good Syrian refugees.
Who’s whining? At the least it sounds like you’re meta-whining.
The pastor is toast. (or lion food on the floor of the arena)
The Turkish coup plotter must be given over if the pastor is to be released. That will not happen.
No. Actions have consequences.
People who go to questionable countries like Turkey should expect to get arrested. When they do, tough shit. They chose that course of action. If my kid robbed a store and got arrested, he can serve his sentence. He chose to do what he did and needs to pay the consequences.
Efdogan does not fool Trump.
This will play out in it’s own time.
Erdogan will bring his own end.
Erdogan and his family have a lot of money frozen in the U.S. He and his agents were bypassing sanctions on Iran by trading in Gold as the medium. They got caught. It is a lot of money.
Turkish banker Hakan Atilla convicted in U.S. sanctions case
FR Comments: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3619349/posts
Erdogan is trying too hard to be the big man on campus.
I suspect he’s going to overplay his hand.
Some leaders just don’t know when to leave well enough alone.
He could be a friend of the West. Instead he’s chosen to tweak the West needlessly.
Whatever happens from here, he’s asked for it.
Why Obama took out Gaddafi and left this turkey strutting around I do not know. (Actually, yes, I do know, but it’s frustrating.)
Our NATO dollars at work
The US is under contract to train Turks to be pilots flying the F35 they bought but are not yet delivered.
Pompeo should announce that he is looking for Turkish Kurds to train to fly the F35s.
That should get some attention.
eff Erdogan. Start taking the goodies away from him. Begin withdrawing military assets from the country. No financial aid or reimbursements of any kind. And Sheppard Smith & Lindsey Graham should boycott TURKISH BATHS.
OK, I was kidding about the last item, but you get the picture.
Khadaffi was taken out years ago. There is still strife in Libya. There are various government factions claiming ownership of the naton, and there are militias as well.
It’s a mess there.
Obama, Clinton, McCain, Graham, and Rubio screwed up royally, but advocating for the Muslim Brotherhood to be armed and funded.
It tossed Libya into a state turmoil and eventually cost us our Ambassador and his staff as well.
We had no business in Libya. We had no business in Syria either. We funded the “good” al Qaeda according to McCain.
Along the way, ISIS got part of those funds and armament
Now we’re enmeshed there.
Trump should negotiate for Assad to remain in power, and for all the citizens of Syria to be treated decently if we leave. And then we should leave, with the understanding that if we have to come back, it will not end until regime chance is achieved.
Now Putin and Trump seem to have some sort of an understanding, so I don’t care what this eventually looks like, as long as those who worked with us are safe, and the fighting stops.
I also want to Kurds to be okay.
As for Erdogan, he should stay as long as he can behave himself. As for his troops who threaten the Kurds, we can’t defend the Kurds by air if we have to. We should promise him that’s what we would do.
Remind me again why we’re supposed to be friends.
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