Two men charged with prison murder of former Lostprophets singer Ian Watkins

LONDON – Two men appeared in court on Oct 13 charged with the

murder of Lostprophets rocker Ian Watkins

in the jail where he was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex crimes.

Watkins, 48, the band’s singer and frontman, died on Oct 11 at the high-security Wakefield jail in northern England.

He was convicted in December 2013 of a number of serious offences, including the attempted rape of a baby.

Emergency services were called to the prison on the morning of Oct 11 after reports of a serious assault on a prisoner, but Watkins was pronounced dead at the scene, West Yorkshire police said.

Rashid Gedel, 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43, who were both being held at Wakefield, spoke only to confirm their names and dates of birth during the short hearing at Leeds Magistrates’ Court.

They were remanded to appear at the city’s Crown Court on Oct 14.

Watkins, whose band sold millions of albums around the world, was also hospitalised in 2023 after being attacked, with British media reporting he had been taken hostage by other inmates.

Lostprophets, which formed in 1997 and had a string of gold albums in the United States and platinum albums in Britain, disbanded shortly after Watkins was charged. AFP