The 2018 announcement that Mike Pompeo was to be appointed secretary of state was a game changer. Not just because he promised to “put the swagger back in the State Department,” or because he was a member of the same church denomination as Norine and I. Mike Pompeo’s arrival was so significant for me because he sent us a message. “I am short on promises, long on action. Tell Andrew and Norine I am committed to action.”
The process surrounding indictments is different in the US, where they are issued once a grand jury has reviewed the evidence supplied by a prosecutor and has agreed that there is enough of a case to go to trial. In Turkey the indictment is issued by the prosecutor without being reviewed by anyone. The prosecutor can make any accusations he wants and it is up to the court to then evaluate and decide to accept or dismiss the case.
This was a clear opportunity for Turkey to save face by having the judge review the charges against me and drop the case, or release me pending trial—and lift my travel restrictions—just like they had done with the German journalist. When Tillerson was still secretary of state, Turkish officials had discussed resolving my case. But within a week of his dismissal, they had moved ahead with the indictment, and the court had accepted it and decided to keep me in prison.
THE INDICTMENT was sixty-two pages long and full of ridiculous accusations. In the first pages I read that I was an agent of a shadowy organization called CAMA, which allegedly directs the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the American deep state, as well as all churches in the US. The accusations of one secret witness, code-named Dua, or “Prayer,” took up almost half the indictment, and much of this was about the Mormons. It was all so bizarre that I could not believe what I was reading. According to Cem it was one of the sloppiest indictments he had ever seen.
It also surprised a few people in the State Department. Some US officials had at first thought I was simply caught up in the aftermath of the coup. With time they came to see that I was being held as a bargaining chip because of my nationality but were skeptical that it had anything to do with my faith. With the indictment out, it became clear that I had been targeted specifically because of my faith. My crime was “Christianization,” acting as “an agent of unconventional and psychological warfare” under the “guise of an evangelical church pastor.” All of our work was intended to fragment Turkey, they said, splitting it into pieces. Basically the indictment was associating “Christianization” with terrorism, and presenting Christianity as a danger to Turkey’s unity.
When Karakaya had told me there were forty binders of material about me, he had not been bluffing. The media threw this number around to make it seem like there was a mountain of evidence, but as Cem and a dear church friend waded through the binders, they found that thirty-five of them had nothing to do with me—they were full of information about the Mormons. And much of the remaining five had no relevance to the case. But at least the files were now unsealed.
For the first time we learned that I had been kept in Sakran for eight months simply on the word of the secret witness, Dua. This man had earlier accused the Mormons in a court case but lost. On December 9—the day he sent me to prison—Karakaya called Dua in to make a new statement. Dua repeated the same accusations that had already been thrown out by the court, but this time he added, “Andrew was involved in all of that.” Dua gave what he knew Karakaya wanted, and this was the “evidence” that the foreign minister had used to declare me a terrorist on TV right after the summit.
From the beginning, the Turks had kept changing the reason they gave for holding me, casting about for something that would stick. At first they were going to ban Norine and me from the country based on a request from the department combating human trafficking; then they decided to deport us as threats to national security. After a few weeks they told the State Department a new story—that I had gone to Syria to meet with the PKK. A couple of months later Karakaya accused me of making a speech praising Gulen in our church, and a week later, when the minister of justice met with Senator Lankford, he said I was under arrest because I had spoken negatively about Turkey to refugees, helped some of them leave Turkey, and attended a Gulen conference some years ago. None of these were true. But the pattern made sense.
It fit in with what a friend passed on to us from his talk with a Turkish governor early on in my imprisonment. Speaking about me, Erdogan had told the governor adamantly that they were not letting me go.
THE GOOD NEWS was that the charges that had been handed down to me by video the previous summer were gone, and I was no longer facing three life sentences. Either the TV reports from the previous week had been wrong, or the prosecutor had changed the indictment. But the charges leveled against me—military espionage as well as supporting FETO and the PKK—carried a potential sentence of thirty-five years. Since I’d turned fifty in January, it was as good as a life sentence.
My trial date was set for April, which gave me just under a month to work through the indictment and prepare my defense. It wasn’t easy. I could not do even the most basic research because I was locked up, and I had limited time with Cem. Norine spent hours looking through the files, poring over phone records, emails, and messages, and gathering exculpatory evidence. This included going through my sermons in search of evidence that would help refute the claim that I had supported Kurdish separatists. She found a recording of me encouraging Turks and Kurds to reconcile and “love one another,” and another one in which I taught on the principle that Christians are to submit to our authorities and pray for them.
There were days when I worked with purpose, days when I felt inspired to press on and prepare my defense to the best of my abilities, glad for the opportunity to finally present the truth to the Turkish courts. Then there were days when I felt as though there was no point at all in my work. My fate was not in the hands of whatever Turkish judge heard my case. My fate was controlled by one man only—Erdogan. No judge was ever going to reach a verdict based on his own conclusions about me. They would only move when Erdogan told them to. My defense could be the best in the world, but it would make no difference.
I worked to remind myself that while President Erdogan did hold power in Turkey, the final word was always God’s. And if God wanted me released from prison, then I’d be released. I just didn’t know how, or when.
Now that my trial date was set, I noticed that I was being treated differently in Buca. Every time I met with Norine or Cem there were always twice as many guards around me, as well as an assistant prison director. My food delivery routine changed too. Until now Nejat and I had gotten our meals like everyone else, by handing out our cell’s empty food bowls through the door’s metal serving hatch to a fellow inmate who was supervised by a guard as he spooned out our allocation from the food cart and handed it back. But things changed after the indictment. A prison director would visit the kitchen and supervise our cell’s food being taken out of a common pot and placed in sealed containers. He would then accompany the guards who walked the food to our cell and handed it directly to us.
The authorities clearly were not taking any chances with my security. According to reports in the Turkish media, the CIA was worried that I was about to reveal their secret plans for the region and were therefore preparing to assassinate me at any minute. It was almost funny, except that there were certain factions in Turkey that could want to create even more problems between the two countries. In the land of conspiracy theories, having a ready-made suspect would make it a whole lot easier if something happened to me.
ONE DAY I WAS READING in the Bible where Paul wrote, “Everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.” I had read Philippians 2 many times, but this time this verse plunged straight into my heart. Paul was describing me! I was so caught up in my own concerns—gaining my freedom and returning to my family. But what about the interests of Jesus? What if his purposes were best served by my being kept in prison? I was sure that several years ago God had given me an assignment to prepare for a spiritual harvest in Turkey. Now as I heard about the large number of people praying for me around the world, and that it was not tapering off but actually spreading, I was beginning to see how it could serve God’s interests for me to be in prison. I had become a magnet, drawing prayer into Turkey.
Should I not be willing to serve God by being in prison? I felt my failure so deeply. I wept and asked God to forgive me.
I GOT A REAL BOOST a couple of weeks before the trial when Senator Tillis, of my home state of North Carolina, visited me in prison. He told Norine, “I came to look him in the eye and assure him that he will not be forgotten.” For a few months my hearing had been muffled and getting worse, so right before his visit I used a Q-tip to try to clean out my ears but ended up losing almost all my hearing. I had to cup my hands around my ears as Senator Tillis was forced to shout to me in the interview room. I could only hear faintly, but what he said came across loud and clear: “Let’s wait and see what happens with this first trial date. If it does not go well, that is when we take the gloves off.”
“THANK YOU, SENATOR!” I yelled as we said goodbye.
AS THE TRIAL APPROACHED, Cem told me what to expect. I had been scheduled to appear at the court on-site in Sakran, and we both assumed that I’d be driven there and back for each session. Cem reminded me that trial days in Turkey are spread out, often with months between each appearance. And while political trials can take five to ten years, he thought mine would be over in less than three years. I was terrified at the thought of being locked up for years on end while the trial dragged out.
Early Sunday morning, the day before my trial was due to begin, heavy banging on the door downstairs woke me up. Ramazan had been moved out some months earlier, so it was just Nejat and me in the cell now. A group of guards barged in, telling me to grab my things and get ready to go back to Sakran.
“Wait! My trial doesn’t start until tomorrow.”
“Yes. We’re taking you there now. It’s for your security—no one knows when we’re moving you.”
I really hadn’t expected this. I barely had time to throw my notes, a few clothes, and other items into a bag. My fingers were fumbling, my head struggling to think straight. I hated Sakran so much that the thought of even being there for just one night was enough to set my heart racing and my throat closing up. And I was worried that it would be for much longer than one night. I kept trying to find out how long I would be there, but no one would tell me anything.
I’d been moved enough times that I thought I knew the routine, but as I waited to be taken outside to the courtyard things were different. There were dozens of military police standing around. I was given a bulletproof vest to put on before I stepped outside and into the bus, and we set off in a convoy.
I hated to think of leaving Buca. Everything about it had been better than Sakran. Nejat was the perfect cellmate who was happy to talk and happy to be silent. The place was quieter, cooler, and run in a more relaxed way. Even the food was better.
As soon as I arrived they processed me in—but not just as a visitor. This was a permanent transfer. I was here for the rest of my trial. Buca was over.
Right away I was placed in an isolation cell. The place was just as loud and chaotic as I remembered. I sat on the single bunk, spread out my trial notes and Bible beside me, and wept. I was back at Sakran, the place where I was considered a hayvan—an animal—and where I had felt my sanity and faith slipping away.
I still had work to do for the next day, but the thought of picking up a pen and getting down to it was just too much. I was devastated and overwhelmed.
I thought about Norine. My being in Sakran would be tough for her too. And our visits would be reduced to thirty-five minutes again. There would be no more letters in English, which meant that only Norine would be able to write to me. And I would be alone, in solitary confinement.
“Oh God,” I called out. “You have brought me back to the place where I was crushed so badly. Why?”
He didn’t reply. But someone else did.
“Hey,” said a Turkish voice nearby. “New person in the cell next door. Who are you?”
At first I did not answer. But when he repeated his question a third time, I told him. “I’m the priest.”
“Ah! I know you. I’ve been following your story.”