Two years after the brutal shooting by police in London of Jean Charles de Menezes on the 22nd of July 2005, his family are no nearer seeing anyone brought to justice for this act.
Jean was living and working in London when he was shot at least 8 times from point blank range, 7 of those shots to his head, as he boarded a tube train at Stockwell station in south London. The initial leaked Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report, known as Stockwell 1, absolved the 11 police/security personnel involved of any blame. When taken with the police and government statements and "off the record" briefings we now know the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes is considered by the British establishment as justified despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Blatant lie
Only minutes after the shooting, Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was live on BBC television news, confidently telling the world a warning had been shouted by armed police before Jean was shot. This was a blatant lie. An eyewitness said the police did not identify themselves in any way. The inquiry by the IPCC has confirmed that no warning was given. A police spokesman said on the day that "a man had ran into Stockwell station wearing a heavy padded jacket with wires protruding from it, vaulted a ticket barrier as he ran from police who pursued him down stairs" and onto the tube. The killing was linked to the previous day’s aborted bomb attempts by a group of men on the London underground, said the police. On the same day, Prime Minister Tony Blair also said the incident was linked with the previous day’s bombing attempt. This was also exposed as lie after lie by the IPCC report. The truth is Jean, who was wearing a thin denim jacket, had walked into the station, used his travel card to enter the automatic barrier, had stopped to collect a free newspaper, walked normally down the stairs and calmly boarded the tube. The all seeing CCTV camera systems that record our every move and which were in place in Stockwell station would have shown in detail what had happened on that fateful July day in 2005. That’s if the recordings from the numerous cameras had not gone missing – never to be recovered!
On the morning Jean was killed, Metropolitan Police Chief Blair, telephoned and then wrote to the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, Sir John Grieve, specifically asking that there be "no public inquiry", insisting instead that the police should investigate themselves with an "internal inquiry". Before Jean’s body was cold, Commissioner Blair was demanding no outside interference. Then on the afternoon of that fateful day, a police spokesman said that 5 shots had been fired. Another lie. Witnesses claimed up to 12 shots were fired, very rapidly. The IPCC investigation settled for 11 shots, meaning that at least 3 bullets missed Jean. The police also claimed that when they shot Jean he was standing up and presented a "real and present danger" and they had reason to think he was about to blow himself and the train up. Once again eyewitness accounts contradicted this and it is now clear from the IPCC report and other sources that Jean was seated when he was pinned down by an unarmed officer and shot in the head at point blank range.
The IPCC Stockwell 1 report stated they had found the Metropolitan Police hostile and uncooperative. The CCTV footage was missing from the station, although the company responsible for its installation and maintenance Tube Lines Technology, said at least 3 of the 4 cameras in the station were working normally. It concluded that no one among the 11 officers involved was at fault and that no action be taken against any individual. This revelation will surprise very few. What is contemptible here is the fact that officers under investigation have been promoted and when the Stockwell 1 conclusions were leaked to the media, individual officers and the Metropolitan Police collectively threatened legal action. The IPCC then altered its findings accordingly and made "minor adjustments". Using the cover of the IPCC’s findings, The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) formally announced no one would face criminal charges in connection with the killing.
Now we have the 2nd IPCC report, which concludes that assistant commissioner Andy Hayman misled the press over the shooting but that Commissioner Blair did not know the truth until the 23rd of July. So in the form of Mr. Hayman we now have our expected scapegoat albeit one who evidently "retains my full support" according to the Commissioner. We can but speculate how it was remotely possible for the Commissioner to go nearly a day without either being informed or asking about the latest on the shooting when virtually every police officer in London knew by mid afternoon that an innocent Brazilian had been shot. What could have been on his mind that was so important?
What we have seen here is nothing short of a ‘shoot to kill’ policy being applied in London under the guise of the so-called war on terror. Had the man shot on July 22nd been in some way involved with the London bombings then all could have been covered up. But the frenzied murder of Jean Charles de Menezes can not be easily swept away in this way, although they are trying to do so anyway. The call by the murdered man’s family for a public enquiry is the very least now required to expose the truth of what happened both about the shooting and the subsequent cover up. Even then serious questions would need to be asked about who will be running such an enquiry lest we get another whitewash job such as the Hutton enquiry.
