‘NO ONE has been held responsible for anything, no one is going to be prosecuted and the police have been allowed to get away with murder,’ alleged a cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes yesterday.
‘It is a huge injustice and very shameful,’ said Patricia Armani da Silva, speaking at a press conference in central London.
Members of the de Menezes family and their solicitors were addressing a press conference after the publication of a report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).
Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by armed police at Stockwell tube station on July 22, 2005.
In October 2005, the family wrote a formal letter of complaint to the IPCC alleging that senior officers including Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair deliberately misled them and the general public about the circumstances surrounding Jean’s death.
‘I think they are treating the life taken away by their hands as if it was an animal,’ Patricia Armani da Silva continued to tell reporters.
Alessandro Pereira read out a statement on behalf of the family of Jean Charles.
It said: ‘This is a damning report which must be acted on.
‘We are disappointed with what the report says about Ian Blair.
‘People inside the police knew they killed an innocent man. It’s unbelievable Blair didn’t know, he must have known,’ the statement alleged.
‘If he knew, he lied. If not, he was not in control of his office.
‘How can anyone have confidence in him? His position is untenable.
‘This report exposes a Metropolitan Police Service that is not fit for purpose. Action now must be taken.’
Lawyer Harriet Wistrich said: ‘On July 22, 2005, a totally innocent Brazilian man was shot dead by the police.
‘In the hours, days and weeks that followed the public were led to believe that he was somehow connected to a terrorist act; that he failed to stop when challenged, and that somehow his actions or appearance contributed to his own death.
‘The report confirms irrefutably that he was entirely innocent and that he in no way behaved in a way that was suspicious.’
She said the delay in releasing the IPCC report was an ‘unnecessary wait for this final clearing of Jean Charles’s name’.
She added: ‘In relation to Ian Blair, we find it inconceivable that Ian Blair was not informed about the mistaken shooting of an innocent man until the next morning.’
Later on in the afternoon, Blair appeared on television to deny that he had lied.
