ISTANBUL, Turkey — Three years into a four-year jail term, Turkmen Christian Shageldy Atakov was released the week of Jan. 11 and reunited with his wife and five children.
Atakov, 39, was set free from his high-security prison cell in Turkmenbashi in the early hours of Jan. 8, according to the UK-based Keston News Service. An indigenous Turkmen convert to Christianity, Atakov was arrested Dec. 18, 1998, while serving as a lay pastor in an independent Baptist congregation in the Caspian port city of Turkmenbashi. Local authorities, including the secret police and a top Muslim religious leader, had for months warned Atakov to stop preaching Christianity or suffer the legal consequences.
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