Whistle-blower suspended

2005-08-18 23:53

London - The person responsible for the leaking of documents about the police shooting of Brazilian Jean-Charles De Menezes has been suspended, BBC and Sky news said on Thursday.

The person was not identified, but was said to be a member of the independent police complaints commission, which is investigating the shooting of De Menezes on July 22, after he was wrongfully suspected of being a suicide bomber.

The commission has neither confirmed nor denied the reports that one of its members was fired.

The leaked documents, including witness statements and photographs, suggested that a series of errors led to the shooting of the 27-year-old Brazilian.

He was shot eight times and killed in a south London subway station one day after a failed attempt to repeat the London bombings of July 7, in which 56 people including four apparent suicide bombers were killed.

Cover up

The leak has led to pressure on the Metropolitan police, whose chief, Ian Blair, said on Thursday there was no attempt to cover up the killing.

The leaked pictures showed De Menezes was wearing a light denim jacket rather than a coat big enough to conceal a bomb as suggested in earlier reports, and that he was not behaving suspiciously, as Scotland Yard had earlier implied.

Pictures showed him entering the subway calmly, picking up a free newspaper and catching a train normally.

It also emerged on Thursday that the Metropolitan police "initially resisted" what should have been an automatic referral to the complaints commission.

The commission (IPCC) was launched in April last year as a "fiercely independent" new body to investigate complaints against the police in Britain.

It has its own team of investigators.

Pressure groups had long complained that under the former system, allegations against police officers were investigated by other police officers belonging to the police complaints authority.

The commissioners are public appointees who, by law, must not have a police background.

- AFP