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Brazilian officials push on with London inquiry into fatal police shooting
A delegation from Brazil pushed on with an inquiry in London into the fatal police shooting of a Brazilian wrongly suspected of being a suicide bomber, as his family demanded a public inquiry, AFP reported.
Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was killed by anti-terrorist officers as he boarded a subway train in south London on July 22, when tensions in the capital were running high in the wake of the deadly bombings here on July 7. The shooting left De Menezes's relatives outraged after leaked information on an on-going investigation contradicted initial information about his death. Keen for answers, Wagner Goncalves, from the Brazilian attorney general's department, Marcio Pereira Pinto Garcia, from the justice ministry, and ambassador Manoel Gomes Pereira, director of the department for Brazilians resident abroad, arrived in London on Monday to gather information. They met senior police officials at Scotland Yard on Monday and are due to speak to members of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is investigating the mistaken shooting, on Wednesday. The Brazilian team is expected to hold a press conference at 3:00 pm (1400 GMT) Tuesday. At Monday's meeting, chaired by deputy assistant commissioner John Yates, officers explained what they had told the family and the Brazilian consulate in the wake of the shooting. They also reiterated an apology. The police revealed that relatives were told two days after the killing that -- contrary to initial reports -- the electrician was not fleeing or behaving suspiciously when he was shot in a subway car in front of horrified commuters. Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair -- the man at the centre of the furor who has faced falls from De Menezes's supporters to resign -- was present for part of the meeting, which the Met described as "positive and constructive". In another part of London on Monday, the De Menezes family hand-delivered a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair calling for a public inquiry into the July 22 killing and for those responsible to be brought to justice. "I am calling on him to make sure that those responsible for the murder of Jean are brought to justice," said cousin Alessandro Pereira with 200 supporters with placards around him. "The family also calls for a full public inquiry into all the circumstances into the death of my cousin, including the 'shoot to kill' policy and the lies we have been told by the Metropolitan Police." Shaking with emotion, he went on: "Every day we discover more and more lies. We have heard too many, we simply demand truth and justice." The prime minister, who is unrelated to the police commissioner, was not at Downing Street for the protest, as he was in Barbados on a summer holiday, but he has expressed support for his namesake. Meanwhile, a coroner's inquest will reconvene on Tuesday and a memorial mass for De Menezes is also scheduled to take place at a church in east London at 7:30 pm (1830 GMT).
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