Simon Cumbers

Cumbers' death was considered a murder in the UK. In Saudi Arabia, Adel al-Dhubaiti was arrested in 2004; tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death in November 2014, and executed 2 January 2016. Cumbers' parents spoke out against his execution.

Frank Gardner wrote a book, Blood and Sand, published in 2010, about his reporting in Saudi Arabia and the attack on him and Cumbers.

Journalist Frank Gardner and cameraman Simon Cumbers were assigned to report on the aftermath of the May 2004 Yanbu attack and Khobar massacre terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, both of which had British casualties. The British Foreign Office had restricted nonessential travel there. On Sunday morning, the team arrived in the As-Suwaidi neighbourhood of Riyadh, an ultraconservative area where Al-Qaeda was known to have a presence.

Cumbers was one of the 48 British and Irish journalists who were killed while reporting abroad between 2001 and 2010.

While a student at St Patrick's, he was editor of the school magazine, Tuairim; features writer for Drogheda Independent, Ipswich Evening and Meath Chronicle; and hosted a radio show for Royal County Radio, a local pirate radio station. He started reporting for The Weekender. Around the age of 20, he started as a rookie and advanced to chief reporter for Capitol Radio (now called FM104) in Dublin, Ireland. In 1990, Cumbers moved to the United Kingdom to work with a variety of British broadcasters, including ITN's Channel 4 News, Channel 4 Daily, Sky News, APTN, and the BBC. Cumbers worked both as a journalist and a producer. In the late 1990s, he retrained and became a cameraman as well, establishing Locum Productions with his wife and BBC journalist Louise Bevan, to supply camera crews to broadcasters. Among the stories Cumbers reported on were the 1989 death of Nicolae Ceaușescu during the Romanian Revolution; the 1990 release of Brian Keenan in Beirut, Lebanon; the late 1990s Drumcree conflict; the Good Friday Agreement and Omagh bombing in 1998, the Kursk submarine disaster in 2000, and the 2004 Madrid train bombings. He had also interviewed Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

Simon Cumbers (23 January 1968 – 6 June 2004), an Irish cameraman for the BBC News in the United Kingdom, was shot by a gunman in a terrorist attack and died while reporting in As-Suwaidi, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His colleague Frank Gardner, who was also shot, survived the terrorist attack but was left paralysed.