YEREVAN, JULY 15, ARMENPRESS. Istanbul-based ethnic Armenian scholar Sevan Nishanyan, who escaped from prison in Turkey on July 14, posted a photo on Facebook, Armenpress reports.

Nishanyan posted the photo under the title ‘Outlaw’.

Nishanyan, who has been serving a 17-year prison term since 2014 in Turkey, has escaped from the correctional facility. Nishanyan exited the minimum security (open regime) prison in the morning of July 14 and hasn’t returned. A tweet later appeared on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, saying: “The bird flew away: Same wishes to the remaining 80 million”.

Nishanyan told Turkish media that when time comes he will tell in-detail about how he escaped from prison. Asked why he made such a decision, Nishanyan said: “I thought that 3.5 years is already enough, it’s time to take a breath. That’s it. And I made a decision to leave the territory of the state control by taking advantage of Turkey’s shortcomings”.

“Escape from Turkey is very easy. As you see, all can escape in case of having good amount of money. If you give the money to the security in the structures, you can escape very calmly”, the scholar said. He refused to mention where he is now, in Turkey or out of its borders.

Nishanyan was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey for carrying out “illegal” construction in his own garden.

Even Turkish media said the arrest was an obvious framing by Turkish authorities, because Nishanyan has publicly criticized Turkey’s government’s mistakes.

Numerous activities and individuals have called for his release, saying that the true reason of his arrest is the fact that he dared to criticize the official history of Turkey by writing the “False Republic” book.