British police challenged over shooting of Brazilian man

by Kirsten Aiken

MARK COLVIN: In Britain a leaked report has cast major new doubts on the credibility of the police in the case of the young Brazilian man who was wrongfully killed on the underground last month.

The report, obtained by the national commercial TV news service ITN, contradicts the police account of how undercover officers shot and killed, Jean Charles de Menezes.

It challenges such police claims as that Mr de Menezes ran away and jumped a ticket barrier, and even that he was wearing a heavy padded jacket.

The killing happened 15 days after the July the seventh bombings and just a day after four men failed to set off more bombs on three trains and a bus in central London.

Our London Reporter Kirsten Aiken is on the line.

Now, Kirsten, it’s not just documents, is it? They’ve got CCTV footage. Have you been able to see that?

KIRSTEN AIKEN: No, no, the CCTV footage has not come to light. What we’re talking about are police statements and eyewitness accounts given to the independent police complaints commission.

None of what we’ve heard from ITV has actually been officially confirmed, that British media here is reporting that its police sources, or that police sources are confirming that these accounts as reported by ITV are in fact accurate.

So the discrepancies that we’re talking about are that on the day in question it was suggested to reporters that Jean Charles de Menezes had aroused the suspicion of police in a number of ways, the first was that he left a housing block which police had under surveillance. They’d thought one or more of the would-be bombers from the day before, July the 21st, was connected to the address.

Second, as you mentioned, he was said to be wearing a big padded coat, only unusual in London because this was a warm summer day.

Third, Mr de Menezes -

MARK COLVIN: That’s actually supposed to be one of the distinguishing marks of a suicide bomber, isn’t it, wearing a padded coat on a hot day?

KIRSTEN AIKEN: That’s right, where he can actually disguise or hide explosives either strapped to his chest or to his waist, if it was actually being worn as a belt.

MARK COLVIN: And for instance the Guardian newspaper says that the CCTV footage shows that he was not wearing this padded jacket, but they haven’t seen it. Are you saying that?

KIRSTEN AIKEN: Well, I have not seen any moving images, no.

MARK COLVIN: Still pictures?

KIRSTEN AIKEN: There has been one still photograph, which has been released. It’s quite a gruesome shot. It does show the body of Mr de Menezes lying face down on the carriage floor. It shows him from just under the shoulders down.

The Brazilian, the 27 year old Brazilian, was actually shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder. So it shows him from just under the shoulder, chest height down.

MARK COLVIN: But the new allegations are that he was wearing a denim jacket, so that’s strike one, that one of the police was relieving himself at the time when he was supposed to be watching the house, and that was when Mr de Menezes came out, which may have been where the whole mistake started in the first place.

KIRSTEN AIKEN: To me the photograph looks as though he’s wearing a long sleeved denim shirt, and it’s actually been pulled up. So it’s really hard to tell from a still shot what the police actually came up against that day or what they saw.

I mean, I would think that if the police had actually indeed followed this man onto the train and then actually shot him numerous times, that that they then probably actually pulled up his shirt.

We did see actually part of his chest, part of his stomach, with this denim shirt exposed.

MARK COLVIN: But the new account also allegedly says that their original account, that he ran and jumped a ticket barrier, that’s wrong too.

KIRSTEN AIKEN: That’s right. He was supposed to have jumped over that ticket barrier. Instead what’s now been revealed is that Mr de Menezes actually used his prepaid travel card to gain access to that station before stopping and calmly picking up a free throwaway newspaper that Londoners read every day on their commute to work, before heading down the escalators to catch his train.

MARK COLVIN: A couple of the broadsheet newspapers are quoting senior police sources as saying that the leaked documents are basically right. Is the police complaints commission, or the inquiry into what happened, saying anything about it?

KIRSTEN AIKEN: Absolutely nothing at this stage. Both the commission and the Home Secretary Charles Clarke say it’s important for the integrity of the investigation that no comment is made before its conclusion. But of course the British media here has reported that their own high level police sources are conceding that these leaks are accurate.

A lawyer for the -

MARK COLVIN: If so, of course it makes it very serious indeed, because it doesn’t just mean jittery police made a mistake, but also that there was some form of cover-up.

KIRSTEN AIKEN: Quite possibly. It’s incredibly embarrassing, certainly, for the Chief of the Police, Sir Ian Blair, who of course will be asked why the initial police account was so different. Did somebody lie? Who was that? At what level, and why? His answers could very well determine his future in the position. And of course it comes at a time when London is still on high alert in anticipation of another attack.

MARK COLVIN: Kirsten Aiken, thank you very much.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1440169.htm