[Mb-civic] London Police Modify Story - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

London Police Modify Story
Brazilian Was Not Provocative

By Mary Jordan, Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Page A08

LONDON, Aug. 22 -- Scotland Yard acknowledged Monday that Jean Charles 
de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician mistaken for a suicide bomber, had 
done nothing unusual before he was shot after entering the London subway 
last month. Police said Menezes used a ticket to enter and had not 
jumped a turnstile, and they said he was not wearing a padded jacket 
that could have concealed a bomb.

That version of events, recounted by police in a written statement, was 
significant because it was similar to a widely publicized report leaked 
last week about the killing of Menezes, 27. The report, which followed 
an independent investigation, had contradicted an official explanation 
of why police shot Menezes seven times in the head on July 22

Menezes was killed a day after bombs planted by four attackers on three 
subway trains and a bus failed to detonate. That attempt came two weeks 
after July 7 attacks on subway trains and a bus killed 56 people, 
including the four presumed bombers, and injured 700 others.

Despite public outrage, police had said little to modify their original 
assertion that Menezes was fleeing when he was shot and was wearing a 
jacket large enough to conceal an explosive device.

Scotland Yard's statement followed a closed-door meeting with two senior 
Brazilian officials, Wagner Goncalves, an assistant attorney general, 
and Marcio Pereira Pinto Garcia, a Justice Ministry official, who 
arrived Monday.

Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, apologized for 
the death of Menezes, according to the police statement. Scotland Yard 
said that police told Menezes's relatives in Britain two days after his 
death that he was not running from police when he was killed. Officials 
also offered his family in Brazil about $27,000, specifying in a letter 
that the amount was for expenses and did not preclude future claims 
against the police.

According to Scotland Yard, payment was originally offered in the days 
after Menezes's death as part of an assurance that British police would 
pay for travel and funeral expenses. The statement said the purpose of a 
top Scotland Yard official's trip to Brazil was to apologize and to give 
the family details of "initial funds" that would be made available to 
assist them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082201287.html?nav=hcmodule
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