Alex Miller
Eyewitness reports and CCTV footage leaked to Independent Television News (ITN) have contradicted initial police reports about the shooting to death on July 22 of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.
Sir Ian Blair, the London Metropolitan police commissioner, told reporters on July 22, the day after a series of failed bombing attempts on the London transport system: "I can say as part of operations linked to yesterday's incidents, Met police officers have shot a man inside Stockwell underground station... The information I have available is that this shooting is directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation. I understand the man was challenged and refused to obey."
Although police later admitted than de Menezes had been unarmed and had no connection with any terrorist groups, initial reports from the scene of the shooting suggested that he had been wearing a thick padded jacket (that could have concealed a bomb), had run away from police when challenged, and had jumped a ticket barrier to leap onto a train.
However, leaked documents detailing CCTV footage and evidence given by eyewitnesses and police officers to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), suggested that de Menezes was unaware that he was being followed and that he made no attempt to run away or jump a ticket barrier.
The ITN website reported on August 17 that the "documents and photographs confirm that Jean Charles was not carrying any bags, and was wearing a denim jacket, not a bulky winter coat, as had previously been claimed. He was behaving normally, and did not vault the barriers, even stopping to pick up a free newspaper."
The August 17 British Guardian reported that the "revelation that will prove most uncomfortable for Scotland Yard was that the 27-year-old electrician had already been restrained by a surveillance officer before being shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder".
The August 18 Morning Star quoted Asad Rehman, a spokesperson for the de Menezes family's campaign for justice, as saying: "The people of London have been told lies and half truths about how Jean died. Jean was an innocent man who was shot in cold blood. We now know that he wasn't acting suspiciously or told to stop by police. He was being restrained when he was shot and killed."
According to a report in the August 18 Guardian, police commissioner Blair had "attempted to stop an independent external investigation into the shooting of a young Brazilian mistaken for a suicide bomber, it emerged yesterday.
"Sir Ian wrote to John Gieve, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, on July 22, the morning Jean Charles de Menezes was shot at short range on the London tube. The commissioner argued for an internal inquiry into the killing on the grounds that the ongoing anti-terrorist investigation took precedence over any independent look into his death.
"According to senior police and Whitehall sources, Sir Ian was concerned that an investigation by the IPCC could impact on national security and intelligence. He was also understood to be worried that an outside investigation would damage the morale of CO19, the elite [police] firearms section working under enormous pressure."
The August 18 Morning Star reported that Harriet Wistrich and Gareth Peirce, lawyers representing the de Menezes family, had called on Ian Blair to resign.
From Green Left Weekly, August 24, 2005.
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