Thursday, June 10, 1999 Published at 18:33 GMT 19:33 UK
Uganda tourists 'unlawfully killed'
The tourists were abducted from Bwindi and beaten to death
An inquest into the deaths of four British tourists on a gorilla-watching trek in Uganda has ruled they were unlawfully killed.
Martin Friend, 24, from Orpington, Kent, Steven Roberts, 27, from Edinburgh, Mark Lindgren, 23, from St Albans, Hertfordshire, and Joanne Cotton, 28, from Nazeing, Essex, were beaten to death by Hutu rebels on the first day of their holiday.
The inquest in Crawley, West Sussex, heard the four dead had suffered severe head injuries and had each been hit with a heavy blunt instrument up to five times.
Pathologist Dr Iain West told the hearing they would have been knocked unconscious by the first blow. He said they had not been hacked, mutilated or subject to any sexual attack.
Rebels were men and women
A Metropolitan police officer sent to Uganda after the massacre told the inquest the rebels had stormed the tourist camp at about 0630 local time, while most of the tourists were sleeping.
They were believed to be from the ragtag Interahamwe militia, whose members have been based in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo since their defeat by the Rwandan Patriotic Front in 1994.
Det Supt Woodward said the rebels rounded up the visitors, looted property, clothing, cameras and jewellery, and took rifles and ammunition from park rangers.
Marched in silence, barefoot
Mr Woodward described how the tourists were separated into groups of different nationalities.
The rebels then selected a group of 16, all Westerners, and one local ranger to be taken up a trail towards the Congo border, five miles (seven kilometres) away.
Ms Cotton, New Zealanders Michelle Strathern, 26, and Rhonda Avis, 27, whose husband Mark survived, were also killed on the trail.
Intention 'was only to loot'
Mr Woodward said that he believed that the intial intention of the Interahamwe had been merely to loot the village.
He said: "We will never know what sparked the original deaths and subsequent deaths of the others. It may have been that they found it difficult to travel in bare feet and lagged behind.
Mr Woodward said three handwritten messages had been left by the rebels - one was given to the released hostages and the others were left near the bodies or on the trail.
He did not read the messages to the court but said they showed "a hatred for Anglo-Saxons and Americans."
It has been speculated that the killings were in revenge against the US and UK governments for allegedly supporting the rebels' Tutsi rivals in the Rwandan government.
Mr Woodward told the inquest that there had been no history of terrorist activity at Bwindi before the attack.
Mr Woodward added: "It is unlikely that now anyone from that Interahamwe group will be caught and prosecuted.
Deaths a 'complete disaster'
Recording a verdict of unlawful killing, West Sussex coroner Roger Stone said the deaths were "a complete disaster" for the families, many of whom were at the inquest.
"It will take many years, if indeed, ever, to come to terms with the deaths," he said.
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni pledged to take revenge on the rebels in the wake of the attack.
There was a massive manhunt by the Ugandan army and reported gun battles, in which large numbers of the rebels are understood to have been killed.
A special committee with responsibility for tourist safety was set up to work on further measures to prevent such an incident happening in Uganda again.
The Bwindi and Mgahinga parks were reopened in April after being closed for a month of mourning.