ANKARA (AFP) - A Turkish worker abducted in Iraq in July has been killed, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said yesterday. A body found on a road near the Baghdad airport in September was identified as that of Yildirim Tek by members of his family, who were asked to examine photographs of the corpse, a ministry statement said. The man was seized on July 23 by kidnappers seeking ransom. The ministry said efforts were under way to bring the body to Turkey.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Romanian prosecutors indicted former prime minister Adrian Nastase yesterday in a landmark anti-graft case, charging him with blackmail and taking bribes worth 1.37 million euros ($1.76 million). Nastase, 56, who headed the Black Sea state’s ex-communist government from 2000 to 2004, has denied the charges, which were also brought against his wife Daniela Nastase and two others. “Prosecutors sent Adrian Nastase to court for repeated bribe-taking, blackmail and... using his influence to obtain personal gains,” the prosecutors’ office said in a statement.

Two former Serbian policeman pleaded not guilty yesterday at the opening of a trial over the killing of three US citizens of ethnic Albanian origin, the private Beta news agency reported. Sreten Popovic was indicted in August along with another police officer, Milos Stojanovic, of having been involved in the killing of the three brothers whose bodies were found in a mass grave in Serbia five years ago. They were accused of having taken the victims - Yili, Mehmet and Agron Bytyqi - upon their release from prison in 1999 and handing them over to other unknown Serbian police who killed them. (AFP)

Over 50,000 civil servants in Bucharest, Hungary, staged a two-hour strike yesterday demanding higher wages, blocking border traffic, tax collection and other public services. Protesting customs officers blocked border traffic, with television stations showing footage of thousands of waiting cars and unhappy drivers. (AP)

Hungarian border guards yesterday found nine Turks inside a German-tagged trailer, apparently trying to travel illegally to Germany. Border guard spokesman Ivan Kovacs said in a statement that officials checking the inside of the Fiat trailer noticed it tilted strangely when they climbed into the vehicle for a routine inspection. The Turks, eight men aged 16 to 41 and a 25-year-old woman, had valid Turkish passports. (AP)