'I try to quell my rage at the murderer of my brother'

Mark Newton-Carter has had enough of memorial services. On Wednesday he will turn his back on St Paul's Cathedral in London and return to his isolated home near Findhorn in Scotland and quietly remember his brother, Christopher, who perished in the World Trade Centre.

"He was my best friend," he says. "Before he went to America, 16 years ago, we were like two peas in a pod. We didn't really need anybody else. We went everywhere together, best mates."

In a way, Wednesday – the first anniversary of the attack – will not be all that different for Mr Newton-Carter than any of the other 364 days that will have passed. He says he thinks about his brother every day. He still talks to him, asking his advice, wondering what he would make of such and such a situation.

"I cannot believe this year has gone so fast. I continue to read and watch archive news about it. CNN have archive footage on their website, I go over that and in some funny way it helps keep Chris alive. In some ways I'm trying to bring Chris back. When I went to New York I bought a book on the World Trade Centre. Every page has pictures of the disaster. I go over that, and look at that.

"It helps, because there is a question that has never been resolved and can't be resolved, and that question is where was he in the last moments? Did he know he was going to die? Was it painful or was it instant?"

Christopher, 52, worked on the 104th floor of the south tower as an associate director for investment bank Sandler O'Neill. He telephoned Mark after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Centre's north tower to say he was all right and to ask his younger brother to convey that to their 86-year-old mother, Linda. That was the last Mark, 51, heard of his brother.

"There was no funeral; there's nothing to bury," he says. "That's one of the hard things, there is nothing tangible and so no closure.

"His wife, Susan, had a commemorative stone laid in the neighbourhood where they lived, near a lovely small park behind their house, with a pear tree and flowers. The whole neighbourhood was at the memorial service. The local commissioner of police said a few words, the priest, and I said a few words.

"It's nice to know all those people are sharing your grief, everybody there is focused on the person you love. That's quite a nice feeling, but mixed with emptiness and sadness. I've never lost anybody that close to me and when I think how short this year has been it makes me realise that I probably never will.

"The publicity has made it easier in a strange, macabre way. It's as if the attention of the world is focused on my brother who I looked up to and loved."

A thoughtful man, Mr Newton-Carter is struggling to come to terms with his own feelings of anger, but also compassion. Towards Osama bin Laden he feels "flashes of hatred". But at the same time is trying to find the strength to forgive him.

"I'm not baying for revenge," he says. "The world is too full of revenge already. Gandhi said an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

"Occasionally I feel rage towards Osama bin Laden. It is momentary – it is a human weakness that is in everybody coming out. It comes to the fore and drives people and it never stops – where does it stop?

"I do think I can forgive Osama bin Laden because it's a lesson I have to learn. That rage does come up, that real hatred. But I try to tap all the spiritual resources."

"It was a good thing that the Taliban have been overthrown and there was probably no other way to do it other than by force. But the knock-on effect has been that millions of people are now homeless, starving and dying. This is the stuff we don't hear about too much. It is winter over there, and people are homeless. It's the real side effects of military action.

"Saddam Hussein has been a thorn in the side of the world for decades. It's a dangerous situation. Maybe if he has got chemical weapons he will use them if we attack. In my view, with terrorists their bark is worse than their bite. Obviously not with the World Trade Centre.

"What we need to stop is innocent people paying for people's political egos and search for power. Saddam Hussein needs to be stopped because of that, not because the American government needs to be seen responding to terrorism.

"I still, after a year, try to quell the rage at the stupid, ignorant murderer who killed my beloved brother. It's a greyer world without him and I shall miss him until the day I die."