[NYTr] de Menezes Murder: Brazil snubs UK shooting report

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Riaz K. Tayob - Aug 3, 2007

al Jazeera - Aug 3, 2007
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/

Brazil snubs UK shooting report

Brazil has expressed unhappiness 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' death.

Menezes' 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.

Source: Agencies - Al Jazeera