'My TV star friend was shot in head by cold-blooded killer - now's our chance for justice'
John Simpson has called on the police to open up a new investigation into the tragic murder of BBC star Jill Dando, after The Mirror found new evidence into who could have murdered Jill
It's been 26 years since the BBC 's Jill Dando was shot dead in broad daylight. At the time her colleague and friend John Simpson was reporting from Serbia as Nato bombed the country.
Today - with the killer still at large - John is calling on police to open a new investigation that could finally get justice for Jill. It comes after we found new evidence that suggests that Jill was murdered by the Serbian security services because she had made an appeal for Kosovan refugees.
Two key witnesses have put Serbian assassin Milorad Ulemek in the frame. Ulemek, now 57 and serving 40 years in a Serbian jail, led a unit of hitmen and plotted assassinations for late Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. A facial comparison expert has found he was identical to a CCTV image of a man filmed near the scene.
Mystery 18 minutes of Jill Dando murder – betting slip, sweating man and key mark
We have now revealed that Ulemek's spyboss has admitted one of his commandos carried out an attack in Europe. At the time Jill was shot, UK planes were bombing Serbia and she was one of the most famous faces on TV, presenting BBC shows such as Crimewatch and Holiday.
Within hours of her murder, the BBC took a call claiming it was in response to a Nato attack on a Belgrade TV station. As the Met considers its next move, BBC veteran John explains why it's the duty of police to investigate the new information...
Firstly, many congratulations on the remarkable facts you've discovered about Jill's murder, and congratulations too on keeping the investigation going. It was one of the most shocking and mysterious murders of modern times, and shouldn't simply be forgotten because it's so difficult to solve. If the Met has lost interest — which is what it sounds like — then an outside force with no prejudices should definitely be called in to investigate it. There should, I think, be a full review of the case.
There was a full-scale media battle over the coverage of the war. I was in Belgrade for the BBC, and came under attack from the Blair government for reporting what was self-evidently true: instead of turning the Serbs against their dictatorial leader Slobodan Milosevic, the daily and nightly bombing by British and other air forces made them angrier and more inclined to support Milosevic, even if they didn't like him.
Blair and his spokesman Alastair Campbell were badly rattled by my report, and accused me of operating under the instructions of the Serbian government. Given all the anger and threats I was getting from the Serbian government, the police and the security organisations, this was an outrageous lie. The BBC from the chairman down gave me its full support, and when I threatened to sue Campbell he backed down.
I honestly don't know whether Jill was targeted because of something she said on air — particularly about Kosovo. I was in Belgrade when the news of her murder came through, and at that stage the journalists there felt certain she had been killed by Serb agents, perhaps because of the appeal she had recorded on behalf of Kosovo.
Almost all the main Western news organisations pulled out of Belgrade at that time because the Serbian warlord Arkan (later murdered himself) had threatened to cut the throats of every British and American journalist who stayed on in Belgrade. He even revealed the room numbers of some of us in the main press hotel in Belgrade.
The rest of the BBC team left, but I decided to stay on and was there for the entire course of the war. That experience made me question whether Jill had been murdered by a Serbian agent, because it would have been so easy to come and kill me if they had wanted to make a statement of that kind.
I also felt that if they had murdered Jill and got away with it, they would have crowed about it — something their propagandists were inclined to do. But I nowadays think it is entirely possible that a Serbian agent who found himself in London at the time decided to stage an attack like this in order to make a political point — whether authorised by Belgrade or simply off his own bat.
Maybe he knew where Jill lived and killed her as a result. Either Belgrade didn't know beforehand, or else they approved it but then decided to say nothing when they saw what an outcry Jill's murder had created.
As a person, Jill was very gentle and quite insecure — not at all the tough operator with sharp elbows most people think news presenters must be. I don't think anyone who worked with her disliked her: she had a real charm, and never as far as I know used her good looks to get on.
Her work really mattered to her — she wasn't one of those people, of whom there've been plenty, who used the fame her job gave her to promote her own career. I thought she was a brilliant news presenter, because she genuinely wanted to tell people what was happening — not how great she was.
For the twenty-six years since her death I have puzzled over it and longed to find out who was responsible, and why. To this day, I often go over the facts in my mind. She was such a professional, I feel it's hugely in the public interest to know whether or not she died because of her work. I certainly don't feel it's good enough to give up trying to find out why she died, simply because so much time has elapsed since that terrible day. If you've uncovered her murderer, I'd feel a huge burden had been lifted from me.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
Farewell to Frederick Forsyth, the master of the thriller
If Frederick Forsyth had not existed, you would have had to invent him. Yet no novelist could have come up with as convivial, swashbuckling and lively a character as the thriller writer, who has died at the age of 86. Many of his millions of admirers thought him almost immortal, and over the course of a half-century career – which began in earnest with the publication of The Day of the Jackal in 1971 and seldom slackened thereafter – Forsyth produced a series of bestsellers that sold tens of millions of copies in dozens of languages. After briefly serving as an RAF pilot, he went to work at Reuters and then as a BBC correspondent, where one of his assignments was to cover the attempted assassination of Charles de Gaulle in August 1962.
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Sean Brown witness speaks about suspect sighting for first time
An eyewitness in the Sean Brown case said he was "baffled" that a female suspect he picked out of an identity parade shortly after the murder was released without Brown, 61, was abducted by the Loyalist Volunteer Force at a GAA club in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, and shot dead near Randalstown, County Antrim, in eyewitness, who is speaking publicly for the first time, saw the woman with two men in a car at the club the night before the murder in what is suspected to have been a scouting Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the Brown family had too many unanswered questions and those questions were "valid". In 2024 a court heard more than 25 people, including state agents, had been linked by intelligence to Mr Brown's information the eyewitness provided about the woman and the car, a white Vauxhall Nova, was central to a fresh PSNI probe and BBC Crimewatch appeal in BBC is calling the witness John to disguise his identity because of his fear of told Spotlight what happened the night before the murder of Mr Brown, who was chairman of the Bellaghy club."I was the last one going out. Sean was still there to lock up," he said."I just thought it was just someone turning at the front of the club."The lady that was driving the car stared me straight in the face."There was two men and they were hiding their faces." John told the Spotlight programme, Murder Without Answers, that he took his information to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) shortly after Mr Brown's helped compile a photofit and was then brought to Belfast to an identity parade."I picked her out right away. I seen the same face right away," he said."The woman constable was standing beside me, and she says, yes we have her."John said that after the identity parade he was shocked when the woman he picked out and other suspects were released."I went home and kept listening to the radio, watching TV and a couple of days later these people were let out without charge," he said."It left me baffled. I'm still thinking – why?"A Police Ombudsman examination of the case in 2004 found the original RUC investigation was "incomplete and inadequate".It has since emerged some intelligence information was not provided to the ombudsman at the time. No-one has ever been charged over Mr Brown's murder and it is now known that intelligence was withheld from detectives in both the original RUC probe and the re-investigation by the a statement to Spotlight, the PSNI said Mr Brown was a "pillar of the community" and his family had a right to know what added that it had previously apologised to the Brown family for failings in the RUC investigation and was sorry for what was discovered during new Brown's daughter Clare Loughran told Spotlight that receiving information about state agents last year confirmed her family's suspicions."I felt physically sick," she said."The wave of emotion was incredible. It was very, very difficult to hear." Her sister Siobhán Brown said it prompted further questions:"You'd wonder why first of all, how long has this been planned for. What or who was involved?" she said."Who gave the order from on high to say Sean Brown has to be taken out?"The Brown family have long campaigned for a public inquiry into the government has appealed a court ruling that found it should hold a public inquiry, arguing it was not an issue which the courts should also believes the implications of the court ruling would go beyond the Brown Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said he expressed his deepest sympathy to the Brown family for the many years they have waited for said he intended to ensure the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), established under the Legacy Act, would be able to carry out an investigation comparable to a public some victims' families say the ICRIR does not have the powers to investigate such ICRIR told Spotlight that proposed legislative reforms could result in it being able to have human rights compliant hearings led by an independent judge.
Reuters
15 hours ago
- Reuters
UK novelist Forsyth has died, BBC News reports
LONDON, June 9 (Reuters) - British novelist Frederick Forsyth, who authored best-selling thrillers such as "The Day of the Jackal" and "The Dogs of War," has died aged 86, the BBC reported on Monday. A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, and an informant for Britain's MI6 foreign spy agency, Forsyth made his name by using his experiences as a reporter in Paris to pen the story of a failed assassination plot on Charles de Gaulle.
