Israel freed a Turkish woman accused of ties to Hamas following a request by President Trump to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as part of a deal to get Ankara to release a US pastor, according to a report.
Ebru Özkan was arrested last month during a visit to Israel as a tourist and was indicted July 8 for smuggling money and goods to the Palestinian Islamist militant group — charges her lawyer denied and which angered Turkey.
Özkan was released the day after the July 14 Trump-Netanyahu phone call, after a month in detention, according to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper.
Israeli officials have refused until now to confirm the reason for her release, but told Haaretz the 27-year-old was deported, not released, and that she would have been deported anyway eventually.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump had asked Netanyahu to let Özkan go in a “trade” for Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who has spent 21 months in Turkish detention.
“I can confirm that there was such a request by President Trump,” an Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, without elaborating.
According to the Israeli paper, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said: “Media reports claiming that Ebru Özkan was released in Israel in return for the release of Andrew Brunson are completely baseless and unreal.”
Aksoy added in a statement that an Israeli court decided on her conditional release on July 9, and that she was later freed pending trial and returned to Turkey.
The US Embassy in Jerusalem had no immediate comment Friday.
Brunson, who denies ties to a group Ankara says was behind a failed 2016 coup, was moved to house arrest Wednesday, prompting the Trump administration to threaten sanctions against NATO ally Turkey.
The pastor denies the charges against him.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has in the past linked Brunson’s case with that of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey wants to try as the chief coup-plotter. Gulen has denied the allegations.
According to the Washington Post, the request for a swap came as part of an agreement made between Trump and Erdoğan during their July 11 meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit
But Ankara said it had not agreed to any Özkan-Brunson exchange.
“Those reports are completely baseless,” a senior Turkish official said, according to Reuters. “The Turkish government has no intention of meddling in the affairs of the country’s independent judiciary.”
Özkan had been held by Israel on “bogus terrorism charges,” the official added.
At the time of her release, another Israeli official told Reuters that among the reasons was that prosecutors considered her case too weak to warrant pursuing.
But her Israeli attorney, Omar Khamaisi, said Friday that the indictment against her had yet to be withdrawn. He said he was unaware of the reported diplomatic deal around her release.
Arriving in Istanbul on July 16, Özkan said Erdoğan and been “kind enough to be very interested in my case.”
On Thursday, Trump vowed to slap Ankara with sanctions for detaining Brunson on terror and espionage charges.
“The United States will impose large sanctions on Turkey for their long time detainment of Pastor Andrew Brunson, a great Christian, family man and wonderful human being,” Trump tweeted.
“He is suffering greatly. This innocent man of faith should be released immediately!”
A spokesman for Erdoğan responded by saying Trump’s threats were unacceptable and damaging to the US-Turkey alliance.
“The United States must reconsider its approach and adopt a constructive position before inflicting further damage to its own interests and its alliance with Turkey,” spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said.