Tube shooting: police officers cleared by internal review

Scotsman
Jan. 15, 2006

AN INTERNAL review by the Metropolitan Police has found two officers followed correct procedures when they shot dead the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes at a Tube station, it emerged yesterday.

The officers adhered to controversial shoot-to-kill guidelines on dealing with suspected suicide bombers.

The findings will raise expectations that an official Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) inquiry will focus on intelligence failures which led up to the shooting - not on the split-second decision made by the officers, on 22 July.

The IPCC is on the verge of handing its own file on the shooting to the Crown Prosecution Service. The Met findings, which were reported yesterday, emerged from an internal review of Operation Kratos, the strategy for dealing with suspected suicide bombers.

Yesterday Assistant Commissioner Steve House, of the Met's central operations, said it had not conducted an inquiry into the shooting at Stockwell station and the review "is confined to policy issues".

Operation Kratos allows commanders to authorise firearms officers to stop a suspect they believe is a would-be bomber by shooting him or her in the head.

Senior officers concluded that the officers acted in accordance with Kratos guidelines. The officers were told they were following one of the suicide bombers on the run after foiled attacks in London and believed he was about to detonate a device.

Senior police insist the shooting was a tragic case of mistaken identity caused by a series of factors that led them to believe Mr de Menezes was one of the alleged 21 July bombers.

The confusion began during a stake-out of a flat in Tulse Hill, an address found on a piece of paper in one of the failed bombers' backpacks.

An army surveillance officer on secondment to the Met was relieving himself when Mr de Menezes walked out. Without surveillance camera images of the suspect enabling confirmation of his identity, he passed on the message that it was worth "someone else having a look".

Mr de Menezes caught a bus but at one point got off and then boarded again a few moments later. He went to the top deck and then returned downstairs, which aroused suspicions in the following surveillance officers.

The IPCC is expected to complete its official report next week. A file will then be handed to the CPS which is expected to spend several months considering whether charges should be brought against ten officers ranging from the rank of constable to commander.

Mr de Menezes' cousin, Alex Pereira, yesterday said he was confident all officers involved would be "brought to justice".