A French journalist held for 51 days on terror charges in Turkey has returned to Paris.

Free-lance journalist Loup Bureau was met by his parents Sunday at Charles de Gaulle airport, according to the campaign group Reporters Without Borders.

Bureau said his release came as “a bit of a surprise”, as he saw no signs pointing to his release Friday, a day after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian met with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.

Bureau was detained July 26th on the Turkey-Iraq border under anti-terror legislation. He was reportedly being held because images were found on his laptop of him with Syrian Kurdish fighters accused by Ankara of being terrorists linked to the insurgent group, the PKK.

Bureau was one more than 150 reporters jailed in a crackdown following the failed military coup in July last year.
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