NASA Scientist Jailed in Turkey for 3 Years Recounts His Ordeal

ISTANBUL — When Turkish police officers stopped him as he set out for the airport to return to the United States after a family vacation in Turkey, the country of his birth, Serkan Golge, a NASA scientist and American citizen, was in disbelief.

It was July 2016, eight anxious days after a failed coup tried to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the police told Mr. Golge that they had received an anonymous tip that he worked for the C.I.A. and was part of a terrorist group accused of masterminding the plot.

The idea was so far-fetched that Mr. Golge expected to sort it out quickly and changed his flight to the next day. “I was quite shocked, but I was like, ‘This will go away,’” he said. “This is probably a mistake and the police and prosecutors would figure this out.”

It would take four years. Mr. Golge and his family returned to Houston just last week, ending a nightmare in which he was held for three years in solitary confinement as he became a bargaining chip in a series of high-level disputes between the Turkish and American governments.