Turkish born, German writer arrested in Spain

Turkish-born German writer Dogan Akhanli was arrested in the Spanish city of Granada on Saturday by police fulfilling an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol in response to a request by authorities in Turkey.

A police spokesman told Efe news that the arrest took place in the morning at a hotel in the city centre where Akhanli was staying.

The writer was then driven to the police headquarters for the region of Eastern Andalusia and was to be interviewed by a judge in the next few hours, the police official added, without specifying the motive for the arrest cited in the warrant.

After the 1980 coup d'etat in Turkey, Akhanli went into hiding and was a political prisoner in a Turkish military jail between 1985 and 1987. He was accused of armed robbery at an exchange office in 1989.

He fled Turkey in 1991 and settled in Germany.

In August 2010, Akhanli returned to Turkey to visit his dying father, but was arrested at the airport and thrown into prison for four months. But he managed to leave Turkey and returned to Germany after a campaign by civil rights activists and Turkish and German intellectuals.

--IANS

soni/bg