Police who shot Brazilian on Tube 'to escape charges'

THE two police marksmen who shot dead an innocent Brazilian in the
belief that he was a suicide bomber will escape criminal charges for
murder or manslaughter, sources close to the inquiry believe.



Senior Scotland Yard officers and Whitehall sources are convinced
prosecutors will accept the defence of the marksmen who shot Jean
Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, at Stockwell Tube
station on July 22.

The two were said to have been interviewed last week by investigators
from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). They are
thought to have used the defence that they "honestly believed" he was
a terrorist and say they used "reasonable force" to stop him
endangering the public.

They are expected to rest their case on accounts of radio
communications between their unit, part of the Yard's elite CO19
firearms team, and officers higher up the chain of command.

De Menezes died after he was followed to Stockwell station from his
flat in Tulse Hill, south London. Police had found the address of a
separate flat in his block on documents recovered from a rucksack at
the scene of one of the unexploded bombs left by four suspects on
July 21.

Separate intelligence, based on surveillance of a car leaving a
suspected terrorist training camp in Wales some months before, had
led officers to the same block.

The day after the failed bomb attacks, the Yard set up a surveillance
operation and officers followed de Menezes when he left the block.
One Whitehall official said: "The two marksmen will say they honestly
believed the suspect represented a real threat to the lives of
themselves and the public . . . They will say they were led by senior
officers to believe that he was a terrorist, that he was a suicide
bomber."

The official said those responsible for passing on the false
intelligence that de Menezes might be a suicide bomber could be at
fault.
"The possibility arises that someone higher up the chain of command
could have acted unlawfully."

The IPCC is also examining statements made by the Metropolitan police
after the attack. Within hours of the shooting, the Met said of de
Menezes that "his clothing and his behaviour at the station added to
[the officers'] suspicions" ? a statement that turned out to be false.

The commission is examining which officers cleared this statement and
on what basis. Its inquiry is due to be completed by the end of the
year, when the findings will be passed to the Crown Prosecution
Service, which will decide if officers should be charged.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1892743,00.html