Two men were charged with murder on Monday in the killing of Ian Watkins, the former frontman of the rock band Lostprophets who was serving a 29-year sentence for child sex abuse offenses at a prison in northern England, the authorities announced.
Mr. Watkins, 48, was assaulted Saturday morning at the Wakefield Prison, the West Yorkshire Police said in a statement on Saturday that did not identify him by name. He was pronounced dead after officers and emergency responders arrived, the police said.
Two of Mr. Watkins’s fellow inmates — Rashid Gedel, 25, and Samuel Dodsworth, 43 — were arrested on suspicion of murder and were taken into police custody, the police said Saturday. The two men appeared in Leeds Magistrates’ Court on Monday morning, the BBC reported.
Wakefield, in West Yorkshire County, is a high-security prison for men, including those who have been convicted of sex offenses.
In 2013, Mr. Watkins pleaded guilty to 13 charges. His offenses included attempting to rape a baby, sexually touching a 1-year-old, encouraging a fan to abuse her child and making child pornography.
Mr. Watkins was sentenced that year to 29 years in prison and six years of probation.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge John Royce described Mr. Watkins as a sexual predator who used his power “to induce young female fans” to help satisfy an “apparently insatiable lust and to take part in the sexual abuse of their young children.”
Mr. Watkins “plumbed new depths of depravity” with his actions, the judge said.
Two other defendants, the mothers of children Mr. Watkins was accused of abusing, were sentenced to 14 and 17 years, according to sentencing documents. They were not publicly identified.
Lostprophets, formed in Wales in 1997, found global success in the 2000s with hits including “Burn Burn,” “Last Summer” and “Last Train Home,” which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart in 2004.
In 2008, the band jointly headlined the Download Festival, a British rock and metal event.
The group’s last record, “Weapons,” was released in 2012. The group disbanded after Mr. Watkins was arrested.
“We can no longer continue making or performing music as Lostprophets,” the group wrote on its Facebook page at the time, The Guardian reported.
Kieran Corcoran contributed reporting.
Johnny Diaz is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news from Miami.
Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news.
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