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.