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Brazilian's family mystified
24/07/2005 18:59 - (SA)
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| Maria Otone de Menezes and her husband Matuzinho, mother and father of Jean Charles de Menezes, show a picture of their son at their home near Gonzaga, Brazil, on Sunday. Menezes, 27, was killed on Friday by British police at Stockwell underground station. (Victor Caivano, AP) |
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Peter Capella
London - Relatives of a Brazilian electrician who was shot dead during a chase on the London Underground were shocked and mystified on Sunday how police could have mistaken him for a suicide bomber.
"Their explanation is that they had to kill someone to show the population that they are making the country safe," said cousin Alex Alves Pereira, who reportedly had to identify the body of 27 year-old Jean Charles de Menezes.
"I ask all the people to ask the Metropolitan Police and (Prime Minister) Tony Blair, 'What kind of job are they doing?" a tearful Pereira told BBC television.
London's Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair expressed deep regrets to the family of the innocent victim on Sunday.
Gratuitous
"This is a tragedy. The Metropolitan Police accepts full responsibility for this. To the family I can only express my deep regrets," Blair told Sky News television, while emphasising it was not a "gratuitous" act.
Witnesses said a frightened Menezes was shot several times in the head at close range by plainclothes officers who had chased him through Stockwell Underground station in south London on Friday after a surveillance operation.
Police at the time said they opened fire because their suspect had refused to obey instructions. Blair confirmed on Sunday that they were under orders to shoot suicide bombers in the head and that policy would remain.
Pereira said his cousin did "not have a past that would make him run" from police and was simply on his way to work from his home in Tulse Hill, south London.
Another cousin, Aleide de Menezes, said Jean Charles spoke English very well and would have understood police instructions, CBN radio in Brazil reported.
Gratuitous
Menezes, who came from the city of Gonzaga in Brazil's southeastern state of Minais Gerais, had been living legally in Britain for three years, according to his family.
Menezes had emerged from "a block of flats" that was under surveillance in Tulse Hill, south London, Blair revealed.
Armed police raided an address in Tulse Hill on Saturday after days of surveillance. The Observer newspaper said Menezes might have left the same address on Friday.
"There's no conspiracy to shoot people," Blair said.
Newspapers said Menezes took a bus and got off at Stockwell Underground Station, where police officers following him then decided to intervene.
Explanation
Brazil demanded an explanation for the incident.
"The government awaits the explanation British authorities must supply about the circumstances which led to this tragedy," the Brazilian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim met British under secretary of state David Triesman in London on Sunday, the Foreign Office said.
"I asked that the body be released as quickly as possible, we need to bring him to Brazil, which is what the family wants," Pereira told Globo television.
- SAPA
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