MURDERED bomb disposal expert Ian Rimell had learnt he was going to be a grandfather for the first time - just a day before he was shot and killed in Iraq.

The 53-year-old Kidderminster man was told the news by his wife Jennifer hours before his car was ambushed by gunmen.

Grieving Mrs Rimell said he was "overjoyed" when she told him their eldest child Justine, 25, was three months pregnant.

"He sounded surprised and was laughing," she said.

Waiting

"It was totally out of the blue. I had found out last month and was waiting for him to call to let him know.

"We are always ribbing each other about our ages so it was good to tell him he was going to be a grandfather."

But the family's joy was short-lived when the ex-serviceman was killed on the way to Mosul, in northern Iraq, last Thursday.

He was driving with a bodyguard when the vehicle, which was clearly marked with the name of the mine disposal charity Mr Rimell was working for, came under fire.

Speaking from her Siskin Way home, which the family moved into in 1995, tearful Mrs Rimell said her husband's life was full of promise when it was cut short by the yet-to-be-captured killers.

"The day before we spoke, we were planning to go on holiday. This Easter we had also talked about him retiring sometime between 55 and 60."

The 50-year-old web developer said the news "still hadn't sunk in" and expressed shock at how her husband of 28 years died.

"If he was in the Army then OK, that is your job, but he worked for a charity - he is out to help them and this is how he gets repaid," she said.

She added Mr Rimell's move to Iraq in late July to continue his work for the Mines Advisory Group was made even worse by a breakdown in communication, as he could only call home using an expensive and unreliable "satellite" phone.

Mr Rimell had spent Thursday clearing a scrapheap filled with explosives, before the gunmen struck.

His bodyguard Salem Ahmed Mohammed is still in a critical condition following the attack.

Mrs Rimell said: "There was a knock at the door - as soon as the guy said he was from MAG I knew something was wrong. I didn't need to be told.

"Until I actually see him, I will still think it hasn't happened."

Eldest son Robert, aged 22, was comforting Mrs Rimell this week. She has another son, Simon, aged 19.

Humanitarian zone snub fear

TONY Blair has paid glowing tribute to Ian Rimell, during Prime Minister's Questions at the House of Commons.

But the Prime Minister turned down MP Dr Richard Taylor's call for a "humanitarian zone" to be set up in memory of the father-of-three.

Mr Blair said the terrorists responsible for his death on Thursday, September 4, would show no respect for any such zone.

Mr Blair said the best tribute to Mr Rimell would be completing the task of building a "stable" and "prosperous" Iraq.

Wyre Forest MP Dr Taylor paid his own tribute to Mr Rimell at the first Prime Minister's Questions since Parliament returned from its summer break.

Dr Taylor said the family of Mr Rimell had been left devastated by the killing.

He added: "a fitting memorial to Ian Rimell would be the establishment of a humanitarian zone."

This would be an area where workers doing valuable bomb disposal work could be offered military protections.

Mr Blair replied that he had been "deeply saddened" to hear of the former soldier's death.

However he said the people behind the murder of Mr Rimell and other British soldiers and bomb disposal experts in Iraq would not recognise the concept of any humanitarian zone.

Mr Rimell was awarded the British Empire Medal after he left the Army in 1994, and since then worked as a bomb disposal expert.

He cleared thousands of home-made bombs and grenades from the Jenin refugee camp in Israel's West Bank, and cleared land in Oman following the Dhofar War.

He had also worked in Bosnia, Albania and Lebanon.