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Enes Kanter believes speaking out about Turkey helped free his father there

Celtics center Enes Kanter can’t recall the last conversation he had with his father.

“Man,” he said, trying to think back. “I have no idea. I don’t even remember.”

Kanter is optimistic that will soon change.

On June 19, Kanter learned that his father, Mehmet, had been acquitted of charges that he was a member of a terrorist organization in their homeland of Turkey. Mehmet is now a free man, after a Turkish court indicted him and, according to Kanter, repeatedly delayed his trial in an effort to detain him. Had prosecutors convicted Mehmet, he would have been imprisoned for up to 15 years.