No charges for Menezes’ killers

LONDON: Police officers who shot and killed an innocent Brazilian mistaken for a suicide bomber will not face criminal charges, prosecutors said on Monday.

However, the department of London’s Metropolitan Police that employs the officers would be prosecuted for violating health and safety laws, prosecutors said.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was killed by police on a London subway train on July 22, 2005.The shooting occurred two weeks after four suicide bombers killed themselves and a day after failed set of attacks.

Stephen O’Doherty, senior lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, which decides whether there is enough evidence to prosecute, said there was no realistic prospect of convicting any individual.

“I concluded that while a number of individuals had made errors in planning and communication, and the cumulative result was the tragic death of de Menezes, no individual had been culpable to the degree necessary for a criminal offence,” he said.

“The two officers who fired the fatal shots did so because they thought that 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,” he added.

Asad Rehman, speaking for the Justice4Jean campaign group, said the family “will be very, very disappointed if no officers are held to account for their actions. “The family does not think health and safety regulations are an appropriate way to hold the police accountable over this issue,” Rehman said. “They will consider all legal options to ensure that somebody is answerable in the court of law.”

Police, who have apologised for the killing, said later they had mistaken de Menezes for one of the suspects in the failed attacks.

“In order to prosecute those officers, we would have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that they did not honestly hold those beliefs. We cannot prosecute them,” O’Doherty said.

He added that “operational errors” indicated there had been a breach of duties owed to the public under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 by the Office of Commissioner of Police. “I have authorised a prosecution under that Act,” he said.

“This will be a prosecution of the Office of Commissioner, as the employer of the Metropolitan Police officers involved in the death of de Menezes,” O’Doherty said.  Jan Berry, chairman of the Police Federation, called the decision “just, fair and difficult.”