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Arts > Cartoons > Early 21st century > Terrorism > UK > 7 July 2005 attacks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jas

The Daily Telegraph        18.8.2005

 

 

 

 

Questions for Sir Ian Blair
(Filed: 18/08/2005)

The leaked documents from the official investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on July 22 are deeply disturbing. We have known for weeks that this was a botched operation by the Metropolitan Police; if the information from the files of the Independent Police Complaints Commission is authentic - and no one has suggested otherwise - then it was even more badly botched than we suspected.

The killing of this innocent Brazilian electrician raises two distinct areas of concern. The first is the operation itself; the second is the response to the tragedy by Sir Ian Blair, the Met's commissioner.

No one now disputes that the killing of Mr Menezes was the result of a series of police misjudgments. The apportioning of blame must wait until the publication of the IPCC report, which we trust will appear soon: a delay of several months would be inexcusable. We do not yet know, for example, who was responsible for the identification of Mr Menezes as a terrorist suspect, on precisely what grounds it was made, and therefore how reasonable it was for Scotland Yard to invoke its shoot-to-kill provision.

It is wrong to demand, as the dead man's family did yesterday, that the police marksmen should face a murder trial. The firearms team took no part in the surveillance operation; they were told that Mr Menezes was their man, and they apparently shot him in the belief that he was a suicide bomber.

The leaks do not provide a basis for snap judgments of decisions taken under extreme pressure, the day after a failed bomb attack. They do, however, suggest that the Met did nothing to correct shockingly misleading accounts of the incident that circulated long after they had been undermined by the evidence of CCTV cameras.

On the day of the shooting, the Met released a statement that the suspect's "clothing and behaviour added to our suspicions". In fact, Mr Menezes was not wearing a padded jacket, did not jump over the ticket barrier and possibly did not know that he was being followed until the gun was fired.

Sir Ian may well have been unaware of the true situation when the statement was issued. But, even if that is the case, why did he allow the claim about jumping the ticket barrier to go unchallenged for so long, together with specious "explanations" for this non-event put about by official sources?

This business has the makings of one of the worst blunders in the history of the Metropolitan Police. The IPCC report must tell us whether Sir Ian knowingly allowed his officers to mislead the public. If he did, it is hard to see how he can remain in his post.

Questions for Sir Ian Blair, DT, (Filed: 18/08/2005)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/08/18/dl1801.xml

 

 

 

 

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