A Turkish pro-government newspaper said on Wednesday that a photograph of detained American evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson and his wife posing with Kurdish children gesturing the peace sign was proof the couple had links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Turkish prosecutors accuse Brunson, who is at the centre of an ongoing spat between the United States and Turkey, of links to both the conservative Islamist Gülen movement, which the government blames for the July 2016 coup attempt, and the PKK, a left-wing armed group fighting Turkey for more than three decades. Brunson faces up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.

Yeni Şafak newspaper featured a photograph of Brunson and his wife posing with a group of what it said were Kurdish children who were gesturing the peace sign and said the image contradicted denials by Brunson’s lawyer İsmal Cem Halavurt that the U.S. pastor had any ties to the PKK.

The newspaper said Brunson was spreading Christianity in the Kurdish community through a man named Muhammed Ahmad, who it said the pastor saw as a son.

A Turkish court rejected an appeal filed by Brunson for his release from house arrest on Wednesday. The U.S. pastor is set to appeal to another court.