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Dead Brazilian's family tell police chief to quit

Posted on: Friday, 19 August 2005, 08:20 CDT

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - The family of an innocent Brazilian man shot dead by British police who mistook him for a would-be suicide bomber called on Friday for London police chief Ian Blair to resign.

Electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot eight times at point blank range as he boarded an underground train on July 22, a day after four bombs failed to explode on the city's transport system.

Blair said at the time de Menezes was under surveillance as part of a manhunt to catch the four fleeing bombers and refused to respond to police challenges. The following day the force admitted they had shot the wrong man and apologized.

Two weeks earlier four suicide bombers had killed 52 London commuters.

"For the sake of my family, for the sake of the people of London, in Jean's name I say that those responsible should resign, Ian Blair should resign," de Menezes' cousin Alessandro Periera told a news conference.

He said the killing had deeply scarred his whole family.

In an interview for BBC Radio, due to be broadcast on Saturday, Blair said he had no intention of resigning.

"No, not at all. Obviously one has to reflect other people's views, but the level of support I and the Met have received over the last few weeks I think outweighs these particular events.

"I think that's the important point, really, that tragic as the death of Mr Menezes is, and we have apologized for it and we take responsibility for it, it is one death out of 57," he said.

On Thursday the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigates all fatal police shootings, said it was initially blocked by the Metropolitan Police from starting a probe.

Under the IPCC's mandate a fatal shooting case must be handed over by the police force involved by the end of business on the working day after the incident. But in the Menezes case it took five days for files to be sent, an IPCC spokesman said.

Leaked police and eyewitness accounts obtained by ITV News conflicted with Blair's version of events.

Initial accounts said de Menezes was dressed suspiciously in a heavy coat on a warm day, fled armed officers, vaulted over ticket barriers and ran on to a train.

But the documents leaked to ITV indicated statements from police and other witnesses showed he was not wearing a padded jacket, had walked calmly through the station and stopped to collect a free newspaper before sitting down in the carriage.

Blair insisted his men had acted in good faith and said there had been no attempt to cover up events.

The Brazilian government announced it would conduct its own inquiry into the shooting and a Brazilian mission will visit Britain next week.

In comments to London's Evening Standard on Friday Blair speculated that the groups involved in the July 7 and 21 attacks may have worked from the same training manual.

"Although we have not yet established any direct links, intuitively there are such similarities between the methodologies and equipment that we must think there is a possibility of others," he said.

"The question is more around was there some training that was held in common, is there some set of instructions somewhere," he asked rhetorically.

Source: REUTERS

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