A Turkish prosecutor on Friday asked a court to end the house arrest and foreign travel ban of US pastor Andrew Brunson, reports said, raising the prospect he could be freed after two years of detention.
The prosecutor requested that Brunson be sentenced to up to 10 years in jail on charges of membership of a terror group at the latest trial hearing in the western town of Aliaga in Izmir province, state-run TRT Haber TV said.
But crucially, he also requested for the court to lift the house arrest and travel ban imposed on the pastor, who was first detained in October 2016.
If the court agrees to the requests, Brunson could return back to the United States immediately and thus end the friction over his case that caused a crisis in relations between NATO allies Ankara and Washington.
With Washington slapping sanctions on Ankara, the crisis also sparked a crash in the Turkish lira in August that exposed Turkey's economic fragility.
The lira was already boosted by the reports of the prosecutor's request, shedding earlier losses to gain 0.7 per cent against the US dollar to 5.88.
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