BERLIN (Sputnik) — Akhanli was detained in the Spanish city of Granada, where he had been on vacation, at the request of Turkish authorities. Akhanli's lawyer said that the detention was based on a criminal case, allegedly politically motivated, which was filed in Turkey.
"I am pleased that Dogan Akhanli has been released. It would be bad if Turkey could also have people who raise their voice against [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan put in prison at the other end of Europe," Gabriel said as quoted in the statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.
The 60-year-old writer has been living in German city of Cologne since 1992. His works mostly focus on the Armenian genocide, which started in Ottoman Empire in 1915 and is vehemently denied by Ankara.
