Police kill innocent man in probe blunder



This was published 16 years ago

Police kill innocent man in probe blunder

British police hunting London bombers admitted killing a Brazilian man by mistake - a blunder that dealt a blow to their efforts to track down militants they fear could strike again.

Police expressed regret for the tragedy and named the innocent victim as Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician who had been living in London for three years.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim demanded clarification from Britain about the shooting.

The victim's cousin, Aleide de Menezes, said: "It's an injustice, something needs to be done."

She said her cousin spoke English very well and would have understood police instructions very well, CBN radio reported.


Another cousin, Alex Alves, told Globo television: "He does not have a past that would make him run [from police]."

Alves said his cousin had lived in London legally for three years and was heading to his job when he was killed. Menezes was an electrician, he said.

Menezes was from the Brazilian south-eastern state of Minas Gerais.

The victim caught a bus to Stockwell Tube where he was challenged by officers, who told him to stop. The man then bolted down an escalator, according to witnesses.

It appears he tried to board a train before being shot five times in the head by an officer with an automatic pistol.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair had said that the shooting was "directly linked" to anti-terror operations.

However, Scotland Yard said last night: "We are now satisfied that he [the man] was not connected with the incidents of Thursday, July 21, 2005."

The Metropolitan Police said an inquest would be opened and adjourned into his death, which they described as a "tragedy".

In another dramatic twist to the massive manhunt, police believe they may have established links between the teams of bombers who struck London twice.

Thursday's attempted attacks came two weeks after 56 people were killed in similar attacks.

Security experts said police had clearly adopted a "shoot-to-kill" policy in confronting suspected bombers.

Anti-terrorism expert Robert Ayers of the Royal Institute of International Affairs said police have "demonstrated that they are operating on the premise right now that if they suspect that someone is a bomber, and that the public is going to be endangered by him, they have shoot-to-kill orders".

Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission said the killing was a direct consequence of British police officers being sent to Israel to receive training on how to prevent suicide bombings.


But former London police chief John Stevens defended the tactics.


"There is only one sure way to stop a suicide bomber determined to fulfil his mission - destroy his brain instantly, utterly. That means shooting him with devastating power in the head, killing him immediately."


Britain's Sunday newspapers agreed that however tragic the outcome it was difficult to blame police for taking the action they did.




In one of the biggest police probes in British criminal history, security sources indicated there could be links between the two London attacks.

The sources, cited by British media, said two of the July 7 bombers attended a whitewater rafting trip at the same centre in Wales as some of the July 21 bombers.

This was based on evidence discovered in rucksacks left behind by the failed bombers. Detectives believe the trip could have been used as a bonding exercise.

Meanwhile, police said almost 500 people had called them after they released security camera images of the four suspected bombers.

Additionally, officers raided an apartment in the Streatham area of south London, not far from Stockwell.

The Abu Hafs al Masri Brigade, an al-Qaeda linked group, has claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombing attempts and those of July 7, but the group's claims of responsibility for previous attacks in Europe have been discredited by security experts.


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