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UK cops 'got away with murder'
03/08/2007 10:34 - (SA)
Brasilia - Brazil says it is unhappy with a British police report on the July 22, 2005 shooting death of a Brazilian national at a London underground station, in the wake of the London bombings.
"The Brazilian government expresses its unhappiness with the tenor of the conclusions of the report which, instead of attributing responsibilities, focuses on the tragic chain of errors that led to the death" of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Ministry of External Relations said in a statement.
The note refers to a report issued on Thursday by Britain's Independent Police Complaints Commission determining, among other things, that Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair was unaware the 27-year-old electrician had been shot by mistake until the next day.
The ministry said: "In its ongoing concern about the case, the Brazilian government renews its support for and solidarity with the Menezes family, and repeats that it will keep insisting that the guilty be held responsible" for Menezes's death.
Menezes's family has branded the report "a huge injustice and very shameful", adding that the British police "have been allowed to get away with murder".
The police commission singled out anti-terrorism chief Andy Hayman for criticism, saying he had failed to pass on information about the identity of the victim to his boss Blair quickly enough, leading to the police chief not knowing about the mistake until the next day.
De Menezes was shot seven times in the head at point-blank range by police, who followed him onto a train at Stockwell station suspecting he was a suicide bomber with an explosive belt around his waist.
The killing took place amid a huge manhunt for four men who, the day before, had attempted but failed to blow themselves up on three London Underground trains, in what would have been a repeat of devastating July 7 attacks that killed 52 people.
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