January 31, 2006	Tuesday	Muharram 1, 1427

LONDON, Jan 30: London’s police chief Ian Blair told a newspaper on Monday his force made errors in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of an innocent Brazilian man whom officers mistook for a suicide bomber.

Blair, who is facing an investigation by an independent watchdog over comments he made after Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police last July, said in an interview with the Guardian that false reports in the media should have been immediately corrected.

De Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, was shot seven times in the head as he boarded a train at Stockwell underground station in south London on July 22.

He was mistaken for one of four men who were suspected of trying to bomb London’s transport system the day before. Police were already on high alert after suicide bombers had killed 52 people in similar attacks just two weeks earlier.

Immediate reports from witnesses suggested de Menezes had been wearing a bulky jacket, had vaulted a ticket barrier and had run when challenged by officers.

However, leaked reports of evidence submitted to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is probing the shooting, cast doubt on the claims and showed there had been major blunders by police.

Earlier this month, the IPCC submitted its full report to prosecutors to consider whether any officers involved should face criminal action, but details have not been made public.

“Clearly the Met (London’s Metropolitan Police) could have taken the decision on the Saturday when we recognised that we had killed an innocent man, we could have put the record straight,” Blair told the Guardian.

“Although we did put the record straight by saying he wasn’t connected, we didn’t put the record straight about all the other issues around him, jumping over barriers and heavy coats and so on.”

The comments come a day after the News of the World newspaper reported that officers had forged a log entry by surveillance officers to cover the fact that de Menezes had been wrongly identified as a suspected bomber.

—Reuters