LONDON, 29 September 2005 — Matuzinhos Otone da Silva and Maria Otone de Menezes, the parents of 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes, who was mistakenly killed by anti-terrorist police at Stockwell tube station a day after the failed 21/7 London suicide bombings, yesterday embarked on the harrowing task of retracing the final journey taken by their son.
“Look what they’ve done to my son,” a visibly distressed Maria de Menezes uttered in anguish as she was led into Stockwell tube station and to the spot on the platform where her son was shot as he attempted to board a train.
The couple had arrived in London with another son Giovani and cousin Alex from Sao Paolo in Brazil on Tuesday on an emotional journey, which hopefully would end in closure for them at least as far as the tragic and untimely death of their electrician son.
The visit, paid for by Scotland Yard, however, is threatening to become a major embarrassment for Sir Ian Blair, Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
The de Menezes family had barely landed at Heathrow Airport, and Maria de Menezes was calling for “justice, justice, justice” for her son and for those responsible for shooting him to be punished.
Yesterday, as she visited her son’s flat in Tulse Hill, south London, before walking along the route Jean Charles took to get the No. 2 bus on his way to Stockwell on July 22, she reiterated her call for the resignation of Sir Ian Blair.
The visit comes at a time when Scotland Yard confirmed that they arrested a 36-year-old man yesterday in London in connection with the failed 21/7 suicide bomb attacks on the London transport system.
He was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch on suspicion of assisting an offender and alleged immigration offences. He is due to appear before Bow Street magistrates sitting at the high security Belmarsh Prison.
The embarrassment for the Metropolitan Police over the de Menezes affair was compounded when a London Evening Standard investigation yesterday, quoting senior Scotland Yard sources, revealed the “utter confusion” in the operation to track Mr. de Menezes and serious failures of communication at a senior level that led to the Brazilian being shot seven times in the head by officers who mistakenly thought he was a suicide bomber, namely Hussein Osman, after boarding a tube train at Stockwell station. Osman and de Menezes lived in the same block of flats in Tulse Hill.
Sir Ian Blair last week admitted to a BBC news program that he had considered resigning in the aftermath of the shooting when it became apparent that police had mistakenly killed the wrong man.
But yesterday, Maria de Menezes said that Sir Ian Blair had “failed in his duty” and “must resign. Jean Charles was a hard-working boy. They (the police) destroyed his life and at the same time destroyed mine. They had time to identify who it was.”
And in a further snub to Sir Ian Blair, the family’s solicitor in London, Harriet Wistrich, confirmed yesterday that they had declined an offer to meet Sir Ian during their two-week visit. “It is not appropriate for them to meet him as he is a witness in their case,” she stressed. However, she added that there was a possibility that they may meet other senior police officers.
Today they are scheduled to meet the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which is investigating the circumstances that led up to de Menezes being shot seven times in the head. The IPCC has called for an end to speculation about the case following claims in the Evening Standard investigation that senior police officers knew within hours an innocent man had been shot.
