Trial resumes in Turkey of US pastor on terror charges

ALIAGA, Turkey: The trial of an American pastor that has strained relations between Turkey and the US resumed on Monday, with the defendant again rejecting charges of links to terror groups.

Andrew Brunson, head of a small Protestant church in the western city of Izmir, faces up to 35 years in jail if he is convicted. He has been held in detention since October 2016. Turkish prosecutors accuse Brunson of activities on behalf of the group led by US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen -- who Ankara says was behind the failed 2016 coup -- and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Both the Gulen movement and the PKK are banned by Turkey as terror groups. Brunson, who has lived and worked in Turkey for over two decades, is also accused of espionage for political or military purposes. At Monday's second hearing in the trial which got underway on April 16, Brunson vehemently contested testimony from a witness who suggested his church had been an intermediary for the PKK and a place where PKK insignia were displayed.