Platform CCTV 'was working'

2005-08-22 20:33

London - A newspaper on Monday alleged that three closed circuit television cameras (CCTV) on a London subway platform, where an innocent Brazilian was shot dead by police, were working despite police claims to the contrary.

However, a spokesperson for Scotland Yard, dismissed the story as speculation, noting that the police had never disclosed any comment about the CCTV footage.

The latest report about the controversial shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes came as two senior Brazilian officials arrived in Britain to grill police officers and investigators about what happened.

Wagner Goncalves, from the attorney general's department, and Marcio Pereira Pinto Garcia from the department of international judicial co-operation at the ministry of justice, flew into London's Heathrow airport earlier.

Fatal blunder

The London Evening Standard cited senior sources on the London Underground challenging police claims that there was no footage of the final movements of the 27-year-old electrician mistaken for a suicide bomber at Stockwell station, in a fatal blunder on July 22.

The newspaper said a log book, which was kept to record events at the station and any faults, had no reports of problems concerning the CCTV cameras at the time of the shooting.

It quoted a senior transport union official as saying: "At least three out of four of the cameras were working. There were no reports of anything wrong with the cameras.

"Sometimes you may have trouble with one camera, but staff cannot understand how none of the four recorded anything. It is most unusual to say the least."

The newspaper said the sources spoke out after "police had returned tapes taken from the cameras saying, 'These are no good to us. They are blank'".

However, the BBC had reported that there was a shortage of CCTV footage for the incident as discs for the cameras had been removed the previous day by police officers investigating the failed 21 July attacks on London transport and not replaced.

- AFP