LONDON, England — Brazilian officials are due to fly to Britain this week to talk to investigators examining the police shooting death of Jean Charles de Menezes on the London Tube.
Two Brazilian government officials plan to meet members of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), Scotland Yard Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates and other officials.
According to the UK’s Press Association, they want clarification on new reports that emerged last week about the killing of the innocent 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, sparking accusations of a cover-up by police.
Leaked documents from the investigation into his death appeared to contradict earlier police and witness accounts of the incident at Stockwell Tube station in south London, when de Menezes was apparently mistaken for a suicide bomber.
Embattled Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair won the backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair Sunday evening, despite growing calls for a public inquiry and his resignation.
The Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign group are to hold a vigil and demonstration outside Downing Street Monday evening, a month since his death.
His cousin Alessandro Pereira will hand in a letter to the prime minister calling for a public inquiry. The Brazilian Foreign Relations Ministry has said the new details, together with «shocking» images of the victim’s body on the train, heightened the government’s «sense of indignation.»
Its officials were expecting to get «a number of matters» clarified, including the new information that came out last week, PA said
Wagner Goncalves, of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, and Marcio Pereira Pinto Garcia, of the Ministry of Justice, will not meet IPCC representatives until Wednesday, a commission spokesman told PA.
No other details of their trip have been confirmed, but they are expected to stay for several days.
It was revealed over the weekend that Commissioner Blair did not know his officers had shot an innocent man — after mistaking him for one of the failed bombers of July 21 — until 24 hours after he was killed.
Scotland Yard has also come under fire for offering de Menezes’ family in Brazil a £15,000 payment in a complex legal letter written in English, when they only speak Portuguese.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott gave his support to the police commissioner but appeared to criticize the way the force offered the compensation, and he refused to rule out a public inquiry.
Prescott, in charge of the government while the prime minister is on holiday, said he had not seen the letter but added it would be «terrible» if the reports were true.
De Menezes’ parents and brother claimed to British newspapers they had been pressured into meeting Deputy Police Commissioner Yates, who was in the group that delivered the letter, without their lawyers.
The Mail on Sunday newspaper reported that they had only been informed of the meeting the night before it took place and were told it could not be delayed despite pleading for more time.
Deputy Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell said it was «inevitable» that a further inquiry would be needed on top of the IPCC investigation, and criticized the way compensation was offered.
«I think it was ill-timed, I think it was ill-conceived and I think it was a matter of poor judgment,» he told Channel Four News.
«This is a hugely sensitive issue, not least for the family of the young man who was so tragically killed.
«And to make what seems like a sort of administrative approach as the terms of the letter suggest, really wasn’t the best way to go about things.»
Earlier, he told the BBC: «I believe that the role of the commissioner, in particular what he knew and when he knew it, are the issues upon which further investigation will be necessary.»
He added that Ian Blair was «ill-judged» to have made such unequivocal statements so soon after the shooting.
Solicitor Gareth Peirce, who represents the family and has already called for a public inquiry into the killing, condemned the way the compensation offer was made as «disturbing».
Scotland Yard said on Saturday it had reviewed its controversial «shoot-to-kill» policy and left it largely unchanged.
«We have reviewed it and we have made one or two small changes, but the operation remains essentially the same,» a police spokeswoman told Reuters.
A spokeswoman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, which issues the shoot-to-kill guidance, code named «Operation Kratos,» said the overall policy was unaffected.
«They are going to make changes operationally, but they are not in a position to change the guidance. We are not changing it,» she said.
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