Jean Charles de Menezes’ cousins yesterday said the family is furious at a Metropolitan Police attempt to connect their late relative with a rape case.
The family have found out that the police wanted to take DNA samples from the dead body of the young Brazilian in relation to an allegation of rape.
They are furious that this is the latest attempt to smear the name of the innocent young electrician in order to draw attention away from the truth about his cold-blooded killing by armed police officers on 22 July 2005 at Stockwell Tube station.
Allessandro Pereira, Jean Charles’ cousin said: ‘As we come closer and closer to finding out the truth about how our cousin was killed and hopefully to bringing those responsible to justice, it seems the police will stop at nothing to try and diminish Jean as a person as if to justify his murder.’
Patricia da Silva Armani, Jean Charles’ cousin, added: ‘The police are clearly culpable for Jean’s death and now the smearing of his name. This is a disgraceful and outrageous attempt by them.
‘We are demanding an immediate investigation and will be making a formal complaint to the Police, the Press Complaints Commission and to the Mirror newsgroup.’
One of the family’s solictors, Harriet Wistrich of Birnberg Peirce Solicitors, said: ‘I was approached by the IPCC several weeks ago after it had received a request to take a sample of Jean Charles de Menezes’ DNA in relation to an allegation of rape.
‘I pointed out that a sample could not be taken without the consent of the family or by order of the Court.
‘Given the obvious distress the request would cause the family, I stated that I did not want to broach the subject unless and until some details of the allegations had been provided so that we could ascertain whether for example Jean Charles de Menezes had even been in the country at the relevant time, I have heard nothing further from the police until this leak to the Sunday Mirror.
‘Given the timing of this report following last week’s screening of a Panorama programme exposing a series of disastrous failings by the Metropolitan Police, one can only conclude that elements within the Met will stop at nothing to divert attention from their own failings.
‘It is unfortunate that the family should learn of these allegations in the most public of forums before any attempt has been made to ascertain whether he could be excluded from the investigation.’