Terrorism & Security
posted July 17, 2006 at 11:30 a.m.

No criminal case for mistaken British terror shooting

State prosecutors say 'errors' made, but insufficient evidence to charge officers who killed innocent Brazilian.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

British state prosecutors ruled Monday that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute British police officers who last year shot an innocent man in the belief he was a terrorist.

Police shot Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head on July 22, 2005, just after he boarded an underground train in south London. CNN reports that Stephen O'Doherty of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) ruled instead that the Metropolitian Police will be prosecuted under health and safety laws.

"I concluded that while a number of individuals had made errors in planning and communication, and the cumulative result was the tragic death of Mr. de Menezes, no individual had been culpable to the degree necessary for a criminal offense," said [O'Doherty], senior lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service's Special Crime Division.

"The two officers who fired the fatal shots did so because they thought that Mr. de Menezes had been identified to them as a suicide bomber and that if they did not shoot him, he would blow up the train, killing many people," O'Doherty said in a statement read to reporters.



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BreakingNews.ie, an Irish news website, reports that the de Menezes family told a press conference Monday that the CPS decision was "unbelieveable."

Mr de Menezes' cousin, Alex Pereira, attacked the decision, and said: "It does not make sense, this decision that they made. I find it a shame to take so long for something so important. It is completely unbelievable. I don't know how someone works very hard and spends a lot of money to come to a decision like this."

Another of Mr de Menezes' cousins, Patricia da Silva Armani, said through an interpreter: "We did not expect they were going to hide behind another law that has nothing to do with my cousin's case. I am very disappointed. I think this is shameful. By using these laws to cover up their own mistakes, they are treating my cousin like a dead animal."

The Guardian presents an overview of the entire case, from the moment that police started to follow de Menezes on the morning of the shooting until today's CPS findings.

Although the CPS said the health and safety charges were not aimed at Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Ian Blair, the Financial Times reports that the decision puts embattled Prime Minister Tony Blair (who is not related to Sir Ian Blair) under new scrutiny. An earlier investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission found that a series of "blunders" by police had lead to the shooting.

In what turned out to be a case of disastrous mistaken identity, the blunders began with a surveillance officer failing to confirm Mr de Menezes' identity because he was relieving himself when the Brazilian left his flat on his way to work. Further blunders occurred with police officers communicating flawed intelligence and confused orders to each other as Mr de Menezes was followed, first on a bus and later as he walked into Stockwell station.

The inquiry has convincingly discredited early suggestions from within the police that Mr de Menezes was acting suspiciously and jumped over the ticket barrier. But amidst confused operational guidance, he is thought instead to have been followed without being challenged and shot while he was sitting in a carriage in the belief that he was a potential suicide bomber.

The Guardian also reported on Monday that British police officials had feared that Mr. Blair's "decision to block an independent inquiry into the shooting left the force open to accusations of a cover-up."

Their findings are contained in an internal Metropolitan police document that was written hours after Mr de Menezes was killed in Stockwell tube station last July after police mistook him for a terrorist. Just after the shooting, Sir Ian tried to stop the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigating the case, informing the Home Office in writing that he would deny IPCC [Independent Police Complaints Commission] staff access to the scene at Stockwell.

The British Press Association reports that the Metropolitian Police are likely to be "critical" of the decision to pursue health and safety charges. Three years ago, two previous leaders of the the Met police force were charged under health and safety laws for "failing to protect their own officers after one died and another was seriously injured when they fell through roofs while pursuing suspects." The charges were ultimately dismissed.

The Associated Press reports that Jan Berry, the head of the British Police Association, called the ruling "just, fair and difficult."

"We must never forget the hurt and devastation caused to the de Menezes family by the tragic and fatal shooting of Jean Charles last year," Berry said. "This tragedy took place at an unprecedented time for British policing and in the wake of a new and unrivaled terrorist threat."

"The burden of responsibility on the police service to avert further attacks was tremendous, and on that fateful day that burden was passed on to a few individual officers who will have to live with the consequences of their actions for ever more," he added.

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