LONDON: Scotland Yard acknowledged on Monday that Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician mistaken for a suicide bomber, had done nothing unusual before he was shot by officials after entering a London subway last month. Police said Menezes used a ticket to enter, had not jumped a turnstile and 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 four attackers failed to detonate bombs on three subway trains and a London bus. That attempt came two weeks after July 7 attacks on subways and a bus that killed 56 people, including the four presumed bombers, and injured 700 others.
Despite public outrage, police had said little to modify their original report that Menezes was running from police when he was shot and was wearing a jacket that could have concealed a 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 on 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’ 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’ 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.
Family members have rejected the offer, which one of them described as “disgusting.”
