BRITAIN: Many questions remain to be answered over the fatal shooting in Stockwell station, writes Martin Wall
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair yesterday received the backing of British prime minister Tony Blair, following calls for his resignation over the shooting of an innocent Brazilian by armed officers in Stockwell underground station in London last month.
With Brazilian officials due to arrive in the UK this week to question those investigating the circumstances of the death of Jean Charles de Menezes (27), Downing Street said Tony Blair had full confidence in the commissioner.
The prime minister's deputy, John Prescott, had earlier given his full support to Sir Ian.
The commissioner has been under pressure following the leaking of internal papers from an official inquiry which revealed major police blunders in the run-up to the shooting of Mr de Menezes. The leaked papers also cast doubt on initial accounts given by police and witnesses as to the circumstances of the shooting.
Mr de Menezes was shot dead on July 22nd - the day after the failed second wave of attacks on the London underground - by police who believed that he was a suicide-bomber.
Asked in a BBC interview yesterday whether Sir Ian enjoyed his "full and unqualified" confidence, Mr Prescott replied simply: "Yes."
Meanwhile, in a newspaper interview yesterday, the commissioner revealed that 24 hours had elapsed before he became aware that Mr de Menezes was innocent.
While publicly backing Sir Ian, Mr Prescott, who is in charge of the British government while the prime minister is on holiday, appeared to criticise the way the Metropolitan Police had offered compensation to the family of Mr de Menezes.
Scotland Yard has confirmed that it offered a £15,000 ex-gratia payment to the family. However, it has been criticised because the offer was made in a complex legal letter written in English to the family, who only speak Portuguese.
Mr Prescott said that, while he had not seen the letter, it would be "terrible" if the reports of it were true. "It does sound not a very sensitive way to deal with such a difficult matter," he said.
Mr Prescott refused to rule out a public inquiry into the shooting. But he urged people to wait for the findings of the Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation.
"There are matters of great concern here. I would not want you to think for a moment that I am entirely happy with the events that happened. I think nobody is. It was a terrible tragedy that that young lad was killed."
As the investigation into the shooting continued, two newspapers reported yesterday that the two police units involved in the operation, the surveillance officers and the armed officers, were blaming each other.
The Observer and Sunday Mirror reported that undercover officers who followed Mr de Menezes - after he left an apartment block under observation following the failed bombings of the previous day - did not believe he posed an immediate threat.
The surveillance officers were shocked when armed police shot him at Stockwell station, the reports said, citing senior police sources.
But the armed officers maintain that they would not have shot the man if he had not been openly identified to them by the surveillance team, the Mirror said.
In his newspaper interview yesterday, Sir Ian said that, for 24 hours after the death of Mr de Menezes, he and everyone who advised him "believed the person who was shot was a suicide-bomber".
He had only learned the truth the following morning. "Somebody came in at 10.30am and said the equivalent of 'Houston, we have a problem'," he said. "I thought: 'That's dreadful. What are we going to do about that?'"
Relatives of Mr de Menezes have called on the police chief to resign and the family's lawyers have also voiced doubts that senior officers did not know the truth soon after the shooting.