Skip to main content
U.S. Edition
Search
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
WORLD

Shooting victim's kin: Sorry not enough

Police: Man shot in subway a Brazilian not tied to bombings

story.menezes.jpg
Police said 27-year-old Brazilian national Jean Charles de Menezes was not linked to the bombings.

SPECIAL REPORT

YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS

Acts of terror
London
Great Britain

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Police say the man they shot dead at a London Underground station was a Brazilian national "not connected" with this week's attempted bombings on the city's transit system.

London police identified the man as 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes.

A spokesman for the Brazilian Embassy said Foreign Minister Celso Amorim would arrive in London Sunday for a scheduled United Nations conference. Amorim has asked to meet with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw or another high-level official to discuss the shooting.

"For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets," the police statement said Saturday.

During a news conference following Friday's shooting, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair said "this shooting is directly linked to the ongoing and expanding anti-terrorist operation."

De Menezes on Friday left a south London apartment building that had been under surveillance as part of the investigation into Thursday's attempted bombings.

Officers followed him to the Stockwell Underground station. The man's "clothing and suspicious behavior at the station added to their suspicions," a police statement said.

He challenged police and refused to obey orders before he was shot and killed Friday morning, Blair said Friday.

A witness to the shooting, Mark Whitby, said he was sitting on the train when "I heard a lot of shouting."

"I saw a chap run on to the train," Whitby said. "He was running so fast he half sort of tripped. He was being pursued by three guys. One had a black handgun in his hand."

"As he sort of went down, two of them sort of dropped on to him to hold him down, and the other one fired. I heard five shots."

A cousin of Menezes said his family was angry over the death, challenging police statements that he failed to obey orders and jumped a ticket barrier.

Menezes, an electrician who had lived in Britain about four years, had a multiple-day pass and had no reason to jump the barrier, he said.

"To say 'sorry' is not enough," said Alex Alves Pereira.

Friday's shooting is a rarity in London, where police generally are not armed except for special response units.

Police carried out an armed raid Saturday in south London, the latest in a series of sweeps across the city in connection with Thursday's incidents.

One man was taken into custody in Brixton after he approached a police barrier during the raid, authorities said. His connection to the probe, if any, was unclear.

Two men were arrested Friday in Stockwell, south London, for questioning. They have not been identified.

Images released

The arrests came after police, appealing for help from the public, released images of four men caught on closed-circuit television at sites where and around the time the attacks were attempted.

The first CCTV -- or closed circuit TV -- image released by police Friday showed a young man in a dark top that they said had "New York" written on it. He was apparently fleeing the Oval station, where a bomb was left on a train.

Hayman said the man had traveled there from the Stockwell station, one stop away. Police later found his shirt in an adjacent neighborhood, Brixton.

The second image showed a middle-aged man with a moustache wearing a gray T-shirt with a palm tree image on it and standing on the top deck of the No. 26 bus in Hackney, east London.

The third image shows a man leaving Warren Street Underground station in central London at 12:39 p.m. on Thursday. He was wearing dark clothes.

The fourth image showed a man at Westbourne Park Underground at 12:21 p.m. He later traveled west on the Hammersmith and City line to Shepherd's Bush underground, where he ran off. He was wearing a dark shirt and trousers, and was seen later wearing a white vest.

The latest attacks came two weeks to the day 52 people were killed in four bombings targeting the city's mass transit.

As in the July 7 attacks, three subway trains and a double-decker bus were attacked, but in Thursday's case, the four homemade bombs stuffed in backpacks only "partially detonated," said Assistant Police Commissioner Andy Hayman.

One person was wounded. (Full story)

In other developments:

  • Police also arrested a man at a rail station in Birmingham on Friday. The Snow Hill station was evacuated and cordoned off, police said, and two suitcases were seized at the scene
  • An east London mosque on Whitechapel Road said it received a bomb threat Friday. The mosque was evacuated, while police checked the building. People were then allowed back inside.
  • The mother of Germaine Lindsay, one of the July 7 bombers, said she grieves for the victims. Maryam McLeod told reporters on the island of Grenada she is convinced, however, that he was not involved. (Full story)
  • Story Tools
    Click Here to try 4 Free Trial Issues of Time! cover
    Top Stories
    Get up-to-the minute news from CNN
    CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.
    Top Stories
    Get up-to-the minute news from CNN
    CNN.com gives you the latest stories and video from the around the world, with in-depth coverage of U.S. news, politics, entertainment, health, crime, tech and more.
    CNN U.S.
    CNN TV E-mail Services CNN Mobile CNNAvantGo Ad Info About Us Preferences
    Search
    © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
    A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.
    Terms under which this service is provided to you.
    Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map.
    Offsite Icon External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
    Pipeline Icon Pay service with live and archived video. Learn more
    Radio News Icon Download audio news  |  RSS Feed Add RSS headlines