Menezes family angry over report

BBC
Jan. 20, 2006

The family of a Brazilian man shot dead by police who mistook him for a suicide bomber have expressed anger at not being sent the report into his death.
"As long as we don't have the report we won't trust British justice," said the mother of 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes, Maria Otone.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said its classified report could not yet be seen by the family.

Mr Menezes was killed the day after the 21 July failed bombings in London.

The IPCC investigation was launched after the electrician, from Gonzaga in south-eastern Brazil, was shot seven times in the head at Stockwell Tube station, in south London.

The commission on Thursday sent its report to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will now decide whether to charge any officers.

Mrs Menezes said: "Those who took my son's life should be prosecuted and those who gave the orders.

"As long as we don't have the report we won't trust British justice... when we see the report, then we may trust them."

Giovani de Silva, the victim's brother, said: "We are very upset because they gave the report to the police but not to our lawyers or to our cousins in London."

The IPCC said the family would see a copy of the report when "legal considerations" allowed.

But its senior investigator could travel to Brazil for discussions with the parents in the coming days, it said.

Officers probed

Home Secretary Charles Clarke is to see the report because of the "grave and exceptional" circumstances of the case.

A copy is also being sent to Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police Authority and Inner South London coroner John Sampson.

The report will not be made public until any trial or inquest arising from the case has been completed, but IPCC sources told the BBC all officers interviewed by them over the shooting remained under investigation. A CPS spokeswoman said the case was being treated as a priority, but there was no timetable on when a decision would be made.

"We will review it as quickly as possible but the most important fact is that it is reviewed thoroughly."

Surveillance

On 22 July, the day Mr Menezes was killed, police and soldiers had been watching the block of flats where the electrician lived.

They believed a man suspected of the previous day's attempted attacks lived there.

A soldier saw Mr Menezes leave his flat and thought he resembled the suspect. He suggested it was "worth somebody else having a look".

The IPCC, which hand-delivered its report in two boxes to the CPS on Thursday, has focused on how this vague identification led to Mr Menezes being shot dead on the Tube.

It is known the IPCC has identified "serious communication problems" on the day of the shooting, said BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford.

The IPCC inquiry has interviewed a number of Metropolitan police officers of all ranks over Mr Menezes' death, but the head of the force, Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, was not among them.

A separate IPCC investigation is being held into Sir Ian's handling of the affair.