by Peachtree Pam » Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:28 pm
<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1985954_1,00.html">www.timesonline.co.uk/art..._1,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Mixed up messages that killed Menezes<br>David Leppard and Liam Clarke<br> <br> <br> <br>THE senior Scotland Yard officer in charge of the operation that led to the shooting of an innocent man on a Tube train the day after the failed London bombings last July has said she never intended him to be killed. <br>Commander Cressida Dick has told investigators that she ordered firearms officers only to stop Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, from going down into Stockwell station. <br><br> <br> <br>She had had only two hours’ sleep — from 1am to 3am — during the night before the shooting. <br><br>The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has also discovered that the surveillance team that followed de Menezes from his flat had sent a misleading message to the armed officers waiting at Stockwell. <br><br>When the firearms officers were told “this is the man”, sources say they took it to mean “this is the suicide bomber” rather than “this is the man we have been following”. <br><br>The findings of the IPCC are due to be presented in the next 10 days to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) which will decide whether any criminal charges should be laid. Senior officers believe it is unlikely that criminal charges will be brought against any officers. <br><br>However, Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, and other senior officers are braced for criticism in a second IPCC investigation which will examine Blair’s decisions in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and some of the public statements that he authorised about Menezes. <br><br>The main report is understood to blame what one official called “a mix-up in communications and a failure in command and control”. <br><br>Possibly the most serious breakdown in communication arose from the the message sent by surveillance officers who followed de Menezes from his flat in Tulse Hill, south London, to the Tube and the firearms officers at Stockwell station. <br><br>The Tulse Hill address was being monitored because of evidence found in the rucksack bombs that had failed to explode on three Tube trains and a bus on July 21. <br><br>One contained a gym membership card belonging to Hussain Osman, suspected of an alleged attempted bomb attack at Shepherd’s Bush Tube station, west London. <br><br>Although de Menezes’ features were strikingly similar to Osman’s, the Brazilian’s skin was considerably lighter. Yet the surveillance team remained suspicious. <br><br>The source said: “The surveillance team called in the armed support. They came and jumped the barriers. They were told by the surveillance team ‘this is the man’ and took this to mean ‘this is the suicide bomber’.” <br><br>De Menezes was shot seven times in the head by two policemen after he boarded a train at Stockwell. He was already being restrained when he was shot. <br><br>There were five undercover officers inside the carriage and the young Brazilian was reading a copy of the Metro newspaper when the armed police got there, according to Alex Pereira, his cousin, who has been briefed by the IPCC. <br>The report is understood to be particularly critical of the surveillance officers who followed de Menezes. It will say that they should have realised that he was not dressed like a suicide bomber. Unlike the four failed July 21 bombers, he was not carrying a rucksack nor was he wearing a suicide vest. <br>De Menezes’ family has been shown closed-circuit television footage by the IPCC which appears to confirm that there was no excuse for the error. “When he walked into the station, his jacket was open and you could see he was wearing a dark T-shirt,” said Pereira. <br><br> <br> <br>In defence of Scotland Yard’s catalogue of errors, Blair has provided the commission with a “statement of context” explaining the background to the shooting. It includes a description of the way the police reacted to the July 7 London bombs and fears that the failed bombers of July 21 would return for a second attack on the Tube. <br><br>On July 22 the police were running 18 separate operations in the hunt for the suspects. <br><br>Blair’s statement is understood to point out that no British police force had ever undertaken an operation of this nature and that SO19, the specialist firearms unit, had only minutes to be briefed on its target. Normally officers would be given two or three hours. <br><br>The Met has also explained that the breakdown in communications could largely be explained by the lack of radio communications underground. <br><br>Officers were working flat out to find the bombers and, the report suggests, this may have affected their judgment. The 18 operations placed a huge burden on police resources. <br><br>Dick has told the inquiry that she was brought in as tactical controller and “designated senior officer” only after other officers decided that there was a real risk that the surveillance operation was monitoring a suicide bomber. <br><br>It is understood that Blair will escape censure for misleading the public. <br><br>His defence will be that the Yard’s anti-terrorist branch did not decide that Menezes was not a terrorist until 10.30pm on July 22. Only then did it pass control of the scene to the Yard’s internal complaints department. <br><br>However, Blair is expected to be criticised for his decision to keep the IPCC out of the investigation until five days later. <br><br>At a meeting with senior Home Office officials three days after the shooting, Blair argued forcefully that the Yard should run its own inquiry. <br><br>However, Sir John Gieve, then the senior civil servant in the Home Office, and Len Duvall, head of the Metropolitan Police Authority, pointed out that under the law the IPCC should have been brought in immediately. <br><br>According to one officer, Blair held his head in his hands and told the officials they did not understand that bringing in outside investigators would lead to his SO19 officers “dropping their guns” and effectively going on strike. <br><br>More than 120 firearms officers refused to carry guns after two colleagues were suspended for shooting Harry Stanley, 46, in 1999. They mistook a table leg he was carrying for a shotgun.<br> <br>The Crown Prosecution Service will spend several months reviewing the IPCC report to see whether any officers should face trial for murder, manslaughter or any lesser charges. <br><br>Scotland Yard declined to comment yesterday. <br> <br> <br> <p></p><i></i>