Four months after a coroner ruled that ITN reporter Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by US forces in Iraq, Press Gazette has learned that the names of his killers will soon be in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Services (CPS).
Louis Charalambous, solicitor for Lloyd's widow Lynn, told Press Gazette: "There has been significant development in recent weeks — we're confident that the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions [DPP] can progress matters significantly with their counterparts in the US. The most significant development is ascertaining the names of the soldiers, whose details were previously denied to us at the inquest."
The names of those responsible have been handed over by an anonymous source, and not by American authorities.
Charalambous said: "This will enable them to be interviewed, I would hope eventually by officers from this country."
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The case is now with Sue Hemming, head of counter terrorism at the CPS. Lloyd was killed, together with Lebanese interpreter Hussein Osman and French cameraman Fred Nerac, outside Iraq's second city of Basra on 22 March 2003.
According to local witnesses, Osman and Nerac were arrested and put into an Iraqi pick-up truck with a mounted machine gun, which then opened fire on Lloyd and cameraman Daniel Demoustier's 4×4 vehicle.
Lloyd (pictured right) was shot in the back after getting caught up in US and Iraqi crossfire, then shot in the head by American forces as he was taken away in a minibus for medical treatment. The body of Nerac has never been found.
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Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker made his ruling after a six-day inquest in October 2006, and said at the time he would write to Attorney General and the DPP "with a view to considering the appropriate steps to bring the persons involved in this incident to justice".
ITN has been working with the family and lawyers to pursue the case formally with the American authorities and the Attorney General and DPP in the UK.
ITV News editor-in-chief David Mannion told Press Gazette: "The family aren't seeking vengeance here — we're just seeking to find out as much of what happened as possible. Not just to Terry, but also to the other people who were killed."
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