Afyon - A Turkish court yesterday freed, pending a verdict, five policemen charged with beating to death a journalist in a case seen as a test of Turkey's efforts to improve its human rights record.
The five officers had been sentenced to over seven years in jail for the manslaughter of Mr Metin Goktepe who was beaten to death after being detained by police with dozens of demonstrators in Istanbul in January, 1996. But that verdict was overturned earlier this year and a retrial ordered.
