Two men charged with prison murder of U.K. rocker

British musician Ian Watkins, lead singer of Lostprophets, as he performs on stage at V Music Festival in Hylands Park, Chelmsford, England on Aug 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Joel Ryan)

London, United Kingdom -- Two men appeared in court Monday 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 Saturday 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 Saturday morning 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 Tuesday.

Watkins, whose band sold millions of albums around the world, was also hospitalized in 2023 after being attacked, with UK 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