Andrew Brunson

Andrew Craig Brunson (born January 3, 1968) 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.