LONDON, July 24: British police said on Sunday they had arrested a third man in connection to last week’s bomb attacks in London as they defended their shoot-to-kill policy after wrongly killing a Brazilian electrician who was mistaken for a suicide bomber.
As the probe into the London bombings rapidly gained momentum, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim demanded a full investigation into the killing of 27-year-old Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes.
Police mistook Menezes for a suicide bomber and pursued him through a subway station before shooting him repeatedly in the head on Friday.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw spoke by telephone with Amorim to express his regrets, but said police must have recourse to lethal measures when trying to prevent a suicide attack.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair apologised for the Menezes shooting but stressed that police had to act decisively when confronted by a suspected suicide bomber.
He said the Brazilian was pursued because he had emerged from a block of apartments which was under surveillance as part of the ongoing investigation, the largest in British history.
“It was firmly linked to the ongoing operation,” Blair said.
“The only way to deal with this is to shoot to the head,” he added.
Witnesses said the Brazilian looked “like a cornered rabbit” when he fell to the floor in a train carriage and was shot five times in the head by special anti-terrorist police.
The police commissioner said the investigation into the bombings was advancing quickly and detectives believed that the four suspects in Thursday’s attacks were still in Britain.
Two men were arrested in Stockwell under anti-terrorist laws on Friday and a third was detained in the same area late Saturday, police said.
The third suspect was arrested “on suspicion of the commission or instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism”, police said.
Police said Sunday they had carried out controlled explosions on a suspicious package in a park in northwest London which appeared to be linked to Thursday’s failed attacks.—AFP
