Britain: government lies exposed over de Menezes murder

London's Metropolitan Police chief is facing growing calls to resign over the shooting of an innocent Brazilian man, as reports emerged that he tried to stop an inquiry into the killing and the fallout from last month's London bombings continue.

Supporters of Jean Charles de Menezes said Commissioner Sir Ian Blair must go if he deliberately gave misleading information about the death of the 27-year-old.

Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, mistaken for a bomber, was shot eight times by police on an underground train on 22 July, the day after four would-be bombers failed in attacks on London's transport system and two weeks after the 7 July attacks that left 56 people dead.

Public confidence in the police was undermined this week after leaked documents contradicted earlier claims about the shooting and revealed a series of blunders that led to de Menezes' death.

Harriet Wistrich, a lawyer for de Menezes' family, called on Blair to step down and said relatives wanted to know why police gave false information about the operation and never retracted it.

"Sir Ian Blair should resign," Wistrich told ITV News. "The lies that appear to have been put out, like the statement from Sir Ian Blair for instance, are clearly wrong. And nobody has stepped in to correct the lies."

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New leaks from official sources in Britain have added to the evidence already brought to light, proving that the official story of how Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was gunned down was a pack of lies. In response, the liberal daily newspaper the Guardian has rushed to the defence of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, justifying the use of death squads and excusing a cover-up aimed at concealing how the police murdered an innocent man.

De Menezes was shot at Stockwell underground station on July 22. The police claimed that he had left the home of a suspected terrorist wearing an overcoat on a sunny day, arousing suspicions that he was concealing a bomb. They claimed that on entering the station the young worker had attempted to escape police, jumping a ticket barrier, before being overpowered and shot multiple times in the head, a tactic prescribed by new police procedures to prevent possible suicide attacks.

Numerous “eyewitness statements” were published in the press, testifying to these supposed facts and Sir Ian Blair made an official statement to the same effect.

The documents leaked by someone connected with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigation into the shooting disproved every claim in this scenario. De Menezes had left his own home wearing a light jacket and had not run away. He did not even know that he was being followed. Rather, after sitting down on the train, he was grabbed, restrained and shot seven times in the head at point-blank range.

The leak sparked a major political crisis. Further revelations came thick and fast. It transpired that Blair had blocked the normally automatic convening of an IPCC inquiry for five days. Officers had been dispatched to Brazil in an attempt to secure the silence of the de Menezes family. It is also alleged that police had supplied misleading information to the pathologist investigating the cause of de Menezes death in order to support their version of events.

At the weekend, news reports of further leaks confirmed the police knew de Menezes represented “no immediate threat” when he was assassinated. Senior police sources told the Observer newspaper (the Sunday edition of the Guardian) that “members of the surveillance team who followed de Menezes into Stockwell underground station in London felt that he was not about to detonate a bomb, was not armed and was not acting suspiciously. It was only when they were joined by armed officers that his threat was deemed so great that he was shot seven times.

“Sources said that the surveillance officers wanted to detain de Menezes, but were told to hand over the operation to the firearms team,” according to the article published August 21.

A police source was quoted as saying, “Nothing he did gave the surveillance team the impression that he was carrying a device.”

These revelations confirm that someone at the highest level had taken the decision to implement a shoot-to-kill policy using the pretext provided by the July 7 terror bombings in London. When the opportunity presented itself to do so one day after another failed bomb attempt, de Menezes was the unfortunate victim.

But the immediate response of the Guardian to the revelations has been to question the motives of the source of the IPCC leak and to insist that matters should be allowed to take their proper course. An August 18 editorial stated: “There are always two questions that should be asked about any leaked document. One is what it contains. The other is what the leaker hopes to achieve.”

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Two senior Brazilian officials are to arrive in Britain to question police officers and investigators about the fatal shooting of a Brazilian man mistaken for a bomber.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was killed on 22 July by anti-terror officers as he boarded a subway train in south London, one day after a failed attempt to repeat the 7 July attacks, which killed 52 commuters and four suspected bombers.

The shooting left de Menezes's family outraged after leaked information on an investigation into his death revealed that he had not been acting suspiciously as they had initially been led to believe.

Brazil sent Wagner Goncalves, from the attorney general's department, and Marcio Pereira Pinto Garcia, from the department of international judicial cooperation at the Ministry of Justice, to seek clarification about the reports leaked to ITV television last week.

The delegation will meet John Yates, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, members of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) - which is investigating the killing - and other officials.

"The Brazilian government anticipates receiving clarification regarding a number of matters, including the information released by the press in recent days," a statement on its London embassy's website said.

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