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Lies begin to unravel in police murder of Jean Charles de Menezes

Vicky Short and Paul Mitchell | 17.10.2008 15:58 | Repression

Explosive testimony has been presented to the inquest into the police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes, suggesting that he was shot even though he was known to be unarmed.

Evidence was given that the innocent Brazilian was killed despite his not being clearly identified as a suspected terrorist. In addition, officers involved have said that they were prepared to kill de Menezes even without authorisation from commanding officer Cressida Dick.

Jean Charles was fatally shot two weeks after the July 7 bombings in London, which killed 56 people and one day after an apparent failed second attempt to detonate devices. He was reportedly mistaken for Hussain Osman, one of the failed July 21, 2005, bombers. Anti-terror officers pinned him to the floor of a London underground train and pumped seven bullets into his head at point-blank range.

Last week, a Special Branch officer revealed that he altered his notes because they indicated that police shot dead Jean Charles as he boarded a train at Stockwell tube station on July 22, 2005, even though he was known to be unarmed. The officer, referred to as “Owen,” was giving evidence on October 8.

Owen was deputy surveillance coordinator in the Scotland Yard control room during the surveillance operation that resulted in the young electrician’s death and had made notes about the day’s events on his computer. After he had given his evidence at the inquest, Owen was asked for all his notes relating to the shooting.

He claims he logged onto his computer to change the names of officers into the codenames given by the court to protect their identities, but then deleted a paragraph in which Dick, who is now deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had told officers to allow Jean Charles to continue his journey because he was “not carrying anything.”

The full paragraph reads, “Management discussion. CD [Cressida Dick]: Can run on to tube as not carrying anything. Persuaded by unidentified male amongst management.”

It flatly contradicts Dick’s own evidence at the inquest on October 7, the previous day, in which she claimed that she ordered her officers to “stop” Jean Charles because he was a “terrorist threat.”

Owen says he deleted the paragraph because it was “misleading.” He claimed he couldn’t remember if it was Dick talking although he said it was probably her when questioned further.

“I believe it was the commander but when I reflected I couldn’t be sure, or whether she was saying this is what we are going to do or this is one of the options. It was a woman’s voice.”

When asked if he realised he had committed a serious offence, Owen said, “I have removed a line I believed was wrong and gave a totally false impression.” He told the inquest he had deleted more than he had intended because he was rushing to an appointment. When asked if “management” had asked him to make the changes, Owen replied, “No. I am sure of that, sir.”

Owen also made the startling revelation that he did not submit the crucial paragraph to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) inquiry in 2006 or the health and safety trial last year into the shooting, at which he gave evidence, “because he wasn’t asked to.”

Commander Dick also claimed she was informed “they think it’s him” when Jean Charles left a building linked to Hussain Osman and made his way to Stockwell station. Chief Inspector Vince Esposito, a counter-terrorism expert advising Dick on the day of the shooting, said he believed, “without a shadow of doubt,” that Jean Charles was failed bomber Hussain Osman and that a “critical shot” to the head was only administered if a suspect was identified and was carrying a device.

However, speaking at the inquest on October 10, “Pat,” who acted as contact between Scotland Yard and the surveillance team, reported he had said only that Mr. de Menezes was “possibly identifiable with” the suspect. “I was always under the impression that the subject had been unidentified,” he stated.

Another senior officer, Detective Inspector Merrick Rose, revealed that he could not “recall” whether images of the real suspect, Osman, were discussed at a dawn briefing before Jean Charles’s death—begging the question, was a comparison between the two men ever made?

Dick denies that her instruction to “stop” Jean Charles was an order to shoot to kill and that she did not say “at all costs.”

Mark Lewindon, now retired, was a detective chief inspector in Special Branch at the time. He had told the inquest he had overheard the order from Dick when she was speaking in the operations room at New Scotland Yard. “It was said he shouldn’t be allowed to get on the train and I think the words she used were ‘at all costs,’ ” he said.

Dick responded in her defence that “I would need to be absolutely satisfied that this person posed a dreadful imminent threat to members of the public before I would order a critical shot.”

“I was asking for what you might call a conventional—albeit aware of all the risks—challenge from the firearms officers.”

Subsequent evidence demonstrated that, whether or not Dick was calling to make operational a shoot-to-kill policy, the police involved had already been instructed to do just that.

A tactical adviser and senior firearms advisor known as Trojan 84 made the extraordinary admission to the inquest that police were prepared to take a “critical” shot without orders from their superiors.

The inspector had been in charge of briefing the marksmen who shot dead Jean Charles. Giving evidence in open court for the first time, Trojan 84 said: “We felt that for any DSO [designated senior officer] to make a decision about a critical shot was a hugely difficult decision to make and maybe career-threatening.

“In relation to the critical shot, the instruction would come direct from the DSO but what I also mentioned was that if we were able to challenge, but the subject was not compliant, then a shot may be taken.”

When Trojan 84 was asked if officers were prepared to take the critical shot without authorisation, he replied, “Yes.”

“It was my job to tell the team they would be supported whatever decision they took because of the structures that were in place.”

Trojan 84 could only have conceivably issued such instructions if they had been already laid down at the highest possible level—much higher than the DSO Cressida Dick.

The shoot-to-kill policy implemented against Jean Charles is known as “Operation Kratos,” adopted in secret two years earlier in high-level discussions between top police officers and the government. Under its remit, a senior police officer is on standby 24 hours a day at Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), with the authority to deploy special armed squads to follow and, if deemed necessary, shoot dead suspected suicide bombers.

It is now clear that, without any clear identification or indication of an imminent threat, the police were determined that someone would die that day in furtherance of the so-called “war on terror.”

Moreover, even the limited safeguard of accountability to a designated superior officer would not be allowed to interfere with what was a political and not a security-driven decision. As the World Socialist Web Site insisted in the immediate aftermath of police murder, “there was a deliberate decision to kill, rather than arrest, de Menezes, taken at the highest level of the police force rather than by the officers immediately involved.”

Jean Charles was shot in cold blood primarily in order “to instill fear in the population and implement a shoot-to-kill policy that had been secretly decided on by Prime Minister Tony Blair and top officials two years previously.” The treatment meted out to de Menezes sent out the clear message—first articulated by Blair—that the “rules of the game” had changed.

Vicky Short and Paul Mitchell
- Homepage: http://www.wsws.org

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Don't forget the other pack of lies press released by police on the same day

17.10.2008 18:42

They claimed he was wearing bulky clothing - he wasn't.
They claimed that he had run down the escalator - he hadn't.
They claimed he had jumped the ticket barrier - he hadn't.
They claimed he didn't stop when challenged - he was never challenged.
They claimed he was running when murdered - he was sitting down quietly.
They claimed his migration status was suspect - it wasn't.

I wonder has this festering pile of lies been raised in court? It's just so extraordinary that Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick (she was promoted after the shooting) claimed in a court of law "We did nothing wrong". Must be great to be a cop because you really are untouchable and can do no wrong.

kriptick


Its been all lies and cover up from the start

17.10.2008 19:01

The killing of Mr Menendez was nothing less than cold blooded murder and those responsible should be publicly held to account and not allowed to get away with it. I have had the honour of meeting members of the menendez family and am amazed by the quiet dignity yet courageous insistence on fighting for justice and the truth.
The plain fact is that this mans murder is a shameful and disgusting act. Poilice efforts to avoid culpability aided by the so called IPCC are a disgrace. We should all remember that the police get away with what they do because they are allowed to

George Coombs


In a Tube; Madam!

18.10.2008 00:20

With the highly trained police officers following de Menezes why on earth did they wait until he had entered the tube station? The law had put a large number of traveling public at risk instead of 'challenging' him earlier when in the street.
This was another day when the CCTV equipment along the route failed and FIT, or a similar group, were not on hand with cameras.
There still remains, to me, the mystery of how de Menezes photograph, used by the media, morphed.

Ask an officer the time of day and get banged up for soliciting

PRoS II


What do you mean that his photo morphed?

18.10.2008 19:12

PRoS II,

Please elaborate. What do you mean when you say that his photo morphed?

conspiracist


Tried and tested technique.

19.10.2008 11:14

This has all been seen before but just off the UK mainland. Remember Derry and Bloody Sunday? Same lies and cover up then as now. The story went out that shots had been fired from the crowd and that the army fired in self defence. The truth was that the army fired first and indiscriminately into the crowd.

A case within the UK happened at the time of the Investiture of the Prince of Wails. A member of the Free Wales Army captured and shot by the army/secret service. The press were told he blew himself up with his own explosives.

The UK government has operated death squads for years and with impunity.

Siobhan


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