Vietnam’s communist regime has released an evangelical pastor arrested four years ago accused of helping people escape abroad illegally, said Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a worldwide rights group working for persecuted Christians.

Pastor A Dao, leader of the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ, was released one year before he completed his five-year jail term. He was arrested in 2016 after he attended a conference on religious freedom and spoke about the difficulties his church faced from the state, said the US-centered rights group in a release on Oct. 5.

“Vietnamese authorities sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment for allegedly helping individuals to escape abroad illegally,” ADF said.

The authorities tortured Pastor A Dao after he refused to admit to the charges against him, the group said. They also interrogated members of his church and told them to cease all contact with “foreign reactionaries,” it said.