Met "invited disaster" before shooting de Menezes
- 00:02:16
- ITN
Met "invited disaster" before shooting de Menezes
A police officer identified Jean Charles de Menezes to armed colleagues by saying "here he is", before the innocent Brazilian was shot seven times in the head.Mr de Menezes was gunned down at Stockwell Tube station after being mistaken for a suicide bomber, the Old Bailey heard.Now the Metropolitan Police are on trial for alleged health and safety failures which it is claimed "invited disaster". It denies the allegations.Mr de Menezes was killed following a surveillance operation at his address at Scotia Road, south London, which the police had linked to July 21 attempted bomber Hussain Osman.But despite the surveillance being launched more than four hours earlier, a firearms team had yet to arrive at the address by the time Mr de Menezes left his home for work at 9.33am, said Clare Montgomery QC, prosecuting.In fact they were two miles away having stopped for petrol on the way.He was followed by surveillance officers on two buses and then down into Stockwell Tube station where CCTV pictures played to the jury showed him being followed by surveillance officers.The officers asked their superiors more than once if they should arrest Mr de Menezes but were told to wait, Miss Montgomery said.They did not know that the order had been given to "stop" him boarding the Tube.CCTV images showed armed officers, who did not know whether Mr de Menezes was the suspect, brandishing their weapons as they made their way down to the platform.As they boarded the Tube carriage, they were recognised by surveillance officers as armed colleagues.One of them pointed out Jean Charles by saying: "Here he is.""As the armed police entered the carriage, Jean Charles stood up," said Miss Montgomery."He was grabbed by a surveillance officer and pushed back into his seat. Two firearms officers leant over him and placed their Glock 9mm pistols against Jean Charles' head and fired."He was shot seven times in the head and died immediately."The public were put at risk by the fact that police had allowed a suspected suicide bomber on to a packed bus and then a busy Tube train, Miss Montgomery said.If he had been a suicide bomber, he "may well have been aware of a police interest in him" after a police car drove up to one of the buses he was on with its lights on, and later in the Tube, when the approach of armed officers was "obvious"."If Jean Charles had been a bomber, any bomb he was carrying would have been detonated well before the firearms officers entered his carriage."The fact is that London, and in particular the occupants of that Tube carriage, were lucky Jean Charles was not a bomber," she said.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.
ITN | October 1, 2007
