A Greek court has ordered the release of Turkish Armenian writer Sevan Nişanyan on the condition that he will leave the country within two weeks, the Armenian Embassy in Athens said Friday.
Nişanyan, a 65-year-old linguist and blogger, had been living under a temporary permit in Greece since escaping from a Turkish prison in 2017.
He was detained on the island of Samos on Dec. 30, 2021, after Greek authorities refused to renew his residence permit, his wife Ira Tzourou reported on Facebook and Twitter.
The Armenian Embassy said in a statement on Facebook that an administrative court had "announced a decision according to which Sevan Nişanyan will be released today."
"According to the decision, he is obliged to leave Greece voluntarily within 15 days. As Sevan Nişanyan is an Armenian citizen, he can leave for Armenia if he wishes," it added.
Nişanyan announced he was free through a Facebook post. "I have been released from custody after eight days in jail," he wrote.
Nişanyan and his wife did not comment on their plans. Greek police last week declined to reveal the reason for not renewing his residency permit.
The Armenian Embassy had then said it was "taking all possible measures to resolve the case."
Nişanyan was jailed in neighboring Turkey in 2014 over an illegal building construction case, charges he claimed were "punishment for his outspoken views about restrictions on freedom of expression in the country."
He escaped from a low-security prison in 2017 in western Turkey and sought asylum in Greece, a popular destination for migrants and members of terrorist groups.
Nişanyan was the defendant in several cases in Turkey and in 2012, he was convicted in a case regarding his support for an anti-Islam film.
He also had faced a barrage of criticism for his controversial social media posts where he apparently lauded casualties in a 2020 earthquake in Elazığ, a province whose residents were described as "ignorant, sex-obsessed, backward masses" by Nişanyan.
He was also criticized for social media posts trivializing rape cases.
However, his first claim to notoriety was back in 2008, when he emptied a jar full of feces on the head of his ex-wife during a quarrel.
Greece, whose ties with Turkey are lukewarm and occasionally hostile amid multiple conflicts over migrants and gas exploration rights, had drawn the ire of Ankara in the past for harboring people charged with terrorism and refusing extradition of military officers involved in a 2016 coup attempt engineered by the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ).
