The husbands of two Turkish women expressed thanks and relief on Saturday after their wives were reunited with their children on Friday, following an appeal court decision suspending their controversial six-month jail term.

“We have seen justice in your country, which we did not see in our own country,” said Fatih Yavuz.

“I am so happy. My wife, Rabia, and our son Akif are together now. We video chatted on the phone. They are also very happy. Rabia’s family is also very happy.”

Musa Deneri, the husband of Muzekka Deneri, said: “My wife and son, Sina, are together now. They gave the children to their mothers last night [Friday].

“My wife shed tears of joy that everyone in Malta was so good to her. She said they were excellent people, from the police at the airport to the people in court.”

Their wives Rabia Yavuz, 27, and Muzekka Deneri, 29, had been fighting to be reunited with their sons – Akif, who turns three on Tuesday, and Sina four – ever since they were sentenced to prison on July 28.

The children were placed in state care with the mothers’ consent.

My wife shed tears of joy that everyone in Malta was so good to her

But now that the effective jail term has been suspended, the mothers are back with their children and they are now living together in an open centre pending their asylum application.

The women, both teachers, were arrested at the airport on July 26. They ended up in prison after admitting to using forged travel papers as they sought to avoid repatriation to Turkey from Greece.

They had fled Turkey as members of the Gulen movement, which was blamed for the attempted coup there in 2016.

In an interview with Times of Malta, their husbands, who are still in Greece, recounted how the two families had lived in hiding in Turkey for many years following the failed coup. Last year they travelled to Greece as irregular migrants but decided to leave in search of a peaceful life after failed asylum requests. They had no choice but to obtain false documents, they said.

The women and children travelled first but were arrested in Malta en route to Belgium. They have since applied for asylum.

The case has been cast into the national spotlight after lobbyists and legal experts argued that the sentence breached Malta’s human rights obligations in terms of the protection of refugees as well as the protection of children.

On Friday afternoon, Judge Aaron Bugeja upheld their six-month prison sentence but suspended it for two years.