Jean Charles de Menezes vindicated by inquest jury

[edam]

The jury returned an open verdict - having been prevented by the coroner from considering unlawful killing. Report here

It is not only shameful that the police executed an innocent man but appalling that they have repeated tried to blacken his name and blame their victim for the whole terrible series of cock-ups that led to the killing.

The jury found officers had lied:

Did officers shout 'armed police'? NO
Did Mr de Menezes move towards officers? NO
Did difficulty in identifying the man under surveillance lead to his death? NO
Did the behaviour of Mr de Menezes increasing suspicion among officers lead to his death? NO

Bloody hell, didn't expect that. I thought the jury would just do as they were told. Good for them.

Lets see what happens next. The police cannot be allowed to get away with this, its an outrage.

well, glad to see it was not a total whitewash.

The family were on the news - think they were relieved by the verdict. CPS or police complaints commission or someone has already said there's no way they are looking at it again.

Personally I think it's the people in charge who should be held accountable rather than the individual officers - although I would like them to be challenged on the way they lied about the poor man.

Totally agree edam. Understand that the officers were following orders from their superiors. We know that the officers broke down in court and have to live with this injustice for the rest of their lives but the blatant lies that have been told since day 1 is absolutely shocking.

the whole case is really sad, didn't they say that now all police would have camera phones to confirm suspects?

shouldn't they have had that at the time?

The whole disgraceful episode is shameful.

Unfortunately what we still have is a shoot-to-kill policy. It's not been withdrawn - could be any of us tomorrow.

I thought the death penalty had been outlawed more than forty years ago. Seems to have been brought back without any discussion or democratic debate - only this time they aren't going to bother to go through all the rigmarole of a trial first.