Calls for police chief to resign

2005-08-18 17:25

London - London's police chief faced growing calls on Thursday to resign over the shooting of a Brazilian wrongly suspected of being a suicide bomber, as reports emerged that he tried to stop an inquiry into the killing.

Supporters of Jean Charles de Menezes said metropolitan police commissioner Ian Blair must go if he deliberately lied about the police killing of the 27-year-old electrician in the tense days after the London bombings.

The Daily Mirror newspaper said a senior police officer in charge of surveillance had ordered her men to take de Menezes alive before he entered Stockwell subway station in south London.

Contradicting evidence

Documents leaked this week contradicted Blair's initial claims about the shooting and revealed a series of blunders that led to de Menezes's death on July 22 - a day after a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 bombings that killed 56 people.

"Sir Ian Blair should resign," said Harriet Wistrich, a lawyer for de Menezes's family.

Asad Rehman, spokesperson for the Justice4Jean campaign, said if Blair was found to have misled the de Menezes family, his position would be "no longer tenable".

"It is clear the buck stops with him," Rehman said. "He has to bear responsibility for the failure of this policy and for the incidents of that day."

On the day of the shooting, Blair - no relation to Prime Minister Tony Blair - said it had been "directly linked" to anti-terror operations and the suspect had refused to obey police instructions when challenged.

No suspicious behaviour

Initial reports also said de Menezes had been acting suspiciously - wearing a bulky jacket, jumping a ticket barrier and sprinting onto the train with the police in pursuit.

But witness accounts and photographs leaked showed him in a light denim jacket walking calmly into the station, using a ticket to enter and only running along the platform to catch his train to work in time.

They also revealed that de Menezes - whose death brought to light a secret "shoot to kill" policy in dealing with suspected suicide bombers - was restrained by an officer before being shot eight times.

Turning up the heat on the police chief, The Times and The Guardian newspapers reported that Blair asked the home office on the day of the killing to stop an independent external investigation.

Blair wrote to John Grieve, the top civil servant at the home office, to ask for an internal inquiry because he felt one by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) would impede anti-terrorist operations.

Police and government sources told The Guardian that the commissioner had also been worried an IPCC investigation would damage the morale of an elite firearms squad involved in the operation, known as CO19.

After an exchange of views, Blair's request was overruled by home secretary Charles Clarke, who upheld the IPCC's obligation under the law to automatically investigate police shootings.

- AFP