21/12/2013 BBC Weekend News

David Coleman, the veteran television sports broadcaster, has

died. It is sunny Gunnell with one to go... For almost half a century,

he said the standard in the way sport was covered.

The body of the British doctor who died in a Syrian jail is returned to

his family in neighbouring Lebanon. And memorial services to mark 25

years since the Lockerbie bombing in which 270 people lost their lives.

Hello, good evening. The veteran TV sports broadcaster David Coleman has

died. He was 87. For almost half a century, he brought some of the

biggest sporting occasions into living rooms, covering 11, Olympic

Games and six football World Cups. The BBC director-general called him

one of the country's greatest and most respected broadcasters. David

Bond takes a look back at his life. And Sebastian Coe... It is Linford

Christie! His voice was instantly recognisable, and for more than four

decades the company meant to British sport's greatest moments. David

Coleman started his career as a newspaper reporter before joining

the BBC. He first presented Sports Special in 1955, but it was as the

anchor of the pioneering Grandstand that he really made his name,

delivering major sporting occasions like the Grand National into

people's living rooms. The show became a huge hit, and as technology

was starting to change Taliban, is less formal style took sports

broadcasting into the modern era. -- -- change television. Whatever it

was, nowadays, with multi and everything else, somebody does one

thing and that is it, but he did everything. He was the lead

commentator on Match Of The Day. Can he do it? He surely must! He was

famed for his knowledge and attention to detail, often providing

instant analysis of football results as they came into the studio. He

went on to cover six World Cups. But athletics was his greatest love, and

his Olympic commentaries became iconic. His talents, though,

extended beyond the sports reporting. In 1972, he anchored the

unfolding horrors in the Olympic Village in Munich, where Palestinian

gunmen held hostage and then killed a group of Israeli athletes. There

was some shooting, and the only other details since then is that

when they arrived, there appeared to be about six to eight minutes of

shooting, then everything went quiet, and apparently there has been

shooting since. He could also provide a lighter touch and four

years fronted A Question Of Sport. Despite his fame, he never enjoyed

the limelight and closely guarded his and his family's privacy. He was

also prone to the old gaffe, and he was a popular target for

Impressionist and comedians. But he could not be emulated. He was, quite

simply, the voice of sport. David Coleman, who has died aged 87.

The body of a British surgeon who died in a Syrian prison has been

handed over to his family in Lebanon. Dr Abbas Khan was within

days of being released when Syrian authorities said he committed

suicide, a claim his family do not believe. Speaking shortly after

seeing her son's body, Fatima Khan broke down in tears, accusing the

Syrian government of killing her baby. This report is from Lyse

Doucet. Fatima Khan insisted on going to the

hospital in Beirut today. Hard as it is for a mother to receive her

son's body, this was the day that she expected to bring him home after

he spent 13 months in a Syrian jail. She had been told he would be

freed. Instead, he left Syria in a coffin.

They killed my baby, they killed him! It is a murder!

The Syrian government says that he killed himself in prison. The

British surgeon went to work in a hospital in an area controlled by

rebels. They arrested him for entering Syria illegally. It was his

profession, to give life, not to take life. He was so good to

people... Fatima Khan spent five months in Damascus trying to free

her son. She filmed these videos on her phone. She visited the prison as

often as they let her. She even swept the floor at a Muslim shrine.

She was told it would bring her luck. And she wrote lots of letters,

including this one to David Cameron. Everyone in the family did, even 's

six Abbas-year-old daughter, who wrote to William Hague. The family

says that the government failed them. The Foreign Office says they

did what they could. My brother has been failed by both his government,

by the Syrians, and by a lot of people who said they would help and

did not. A British doctor's death in Syria is a very political story, but

today it is about a mother's loss. Here, the head of the Care Quality

Commission has criticised the effect of the target culture in the NHS,

particularly in accident and emergency departments. He said that

the health service had become too powerful to criticise, with even the

most senior staff afraid of speaking out.

Reeves have been laid by the families of the victims of the

Lockerbie bombings. -- reads. A service was held in the Scottish

town later, and there will be services later in London and the

United States, where most of the victims were from. James Cook is in

Lockerbie for us now. James. Yes, and tonight the governments of

the United Kingdom, the United States and, quite extraordinarily,

Libya as well have joined together in offering the deepest condolences

to the families of those who died aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and on the

ground here in the little town of Lockerbie. And no more

extraordinarily, those governments have joined together in pledging to

continue their investigation to get to the bottom of what exactly

happened in the skies above this town a quarter of a century ago. But

today, here in Lockerbie itself, the focus was not on politics. It was

far more personal. The 21st of December, 1988, the

shortest day of the year, and for Lockerbie the longest and darkest

night. Even now, it is too distressing to show much of what

happened here. For this little town, it was the night it rained

fire and worse. Today, those who have never

forgotten and of those who only now are being told came back to

Lockerbie, many from across the Atlantic. The grief was undimmed,

the bonds unbroken as the people of the town again opened the doors and

their hearts. We welcome you once again to this place, and in doing so

we seek to comfort and consoled you, to offer what healing we can in

the touch of friendship to those who have also experienced suffering. The

suffering spans the globe. Of the 270 people who died, 189 were

Americans. Raymond's father was one of them. He was just 13 when his

father was murdered. I still miss my dad everyday, but you know, I

learned a lot from my father, and I have plenty of good memories, and

that keeps me going. Did you take any comfort from this service? Yes,

I did. The people of Lockerbie have kept the memory alive. And today was

about remembrance and grief, but there is an awkward feeling here,

too, a sense of questions still an unsaid. There has to be justice and

truth, and we have never had that, we cannot go forward until we face

the full reality of something, and the reality of this is knowing who

the murderers were. The central question, who did this and why?

Abdelbasset al-Megrahi died a convicted mass murderer, but the

Libyan's family say they are planning another appeal, and police

say they are still looking for accomplices.

There comes a point were any tragedy moves from news to history. But even

after a quarter of a century, the Lockerbie bombing is not yet in the

-- there. That is it for now, I will be back

with the late News At Ten