Angry family may sue UK cops

2005-07-25 13:07

London - The family of a Brazilian electrician who was mistaken for a terrorist and slain by British police threatened on Monday to take legal action, but a senior officer insisted the new threat posed by suicide bombers made deadly force a necessary option.

Police shot Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, in a subway carriage after mistaking him for a suspect in the investigation into Thursday's botched bombing attempts on three trains and a bus.

Officers later said he had no connection to the probe and expressed deep regret for his death.

His cousin Alex Pereira said: "They have to pay for that in many ways, because if they do not, they are going to kill many people."

The 28-year-old London resident said: "They killed my cousin; they could kill anyone."

Preventing criminals from causing harm

Chris Fox, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said police had to have the option of using lethal force to stop suspected suicide bombers.

Fox said: "We have a series of tactics which range from disruption to the very, very final moment when you have to shoot, and the aim is to prevent the criminal or suspect causing harm to other people."

Plainclothes officers followed De Menezes after he left a block of flats that was under surveillance.

Wearing a padded jacket, he boarded a bus and travelled to the nearby Stockwell Underground station.

According to officials, his clothing and behaviour aroused the suspicions of the police, who ordered him to stop.

Third 'terrorist' held

Witnesses said Menezes ran into a subway car, where officers shot him. It was unclear why De Menezes did not stop.

Police on Sunday arrested a third suspected terrorist after Thursday's failed attack against London's transit system. The arrest came in the same south London neighbourhood where Menezes lived.

Police were also looking into possible links between the bombers who took part in the July 7 attacks, which killed 52 people on three subway cars and a bus, and those involved in the failed July 21 bombings.

Aldgate subway station - one of those bombed on July 7 - reopened on Monday.

Train route remains suspended

Police said Shahzad Tanweer killed himself and seven other people in the station at the eastern edge of London's financial district when he detonated a bomb on a Circle Line train.

That train route remained suspended, but the Metropolitan Line was running normally again through the station.

Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair indicated he believed al-Qaeda-linked terrorists were involved in both the July 7 and July 21 attacks.

Blair said: "The way in which al-Qaeda operates is not a sort of classic cell structure.

"It has facilitators, so we're looking for the bomb makers, we're looking for the chemists, we're looking for the financiers, we're looking for the people who groomed these young people, so it will be a wide network that we're trying to penetrate."

- AP