Hundreds of relatives and friends of a Brazilian shot to death in London after being mistaken for a terrorist marched along the cobblestone streets of his hometown, demanding the arrest of the British police who fired the fatal shots.
Some of the protesters held banners Monday denouncing British police as the real terrorists; other placards were adorned with snapshots of Jean Charles de Menezes, urging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to send his body home so it can be buried.
All said Blair's apology did not go far enough.
PHOTO: AP
"Apologies don't help, we want justice," they chanted, stopping briefly to offer a prayer for the 27-year-old electrician who left Brazil to work in Britain so he could return home with enough savings to start a cattle ranch.
Menezes' killing has been the top story on radio and television broadcasts since Sunday, although there has been no large-scale public outcry.
In London, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said he had instructions from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva "to take firm measures to defend the interests of the family of a Brazilian who died in an absurd manner."
The militant Landless Rural Workers' Movement has scheduled protests Tuesday in front of the British Embassy in Brasilia and the consulate in Rio de Janeiro. The movement said in a statement that Menezes "was assassinated in cold blood, victim of intolerance" and called for a British withdrawal from Iraq.
Gonzaga's mayor, outraged over news Menezes was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder, called the killing an "assassination."
"It's easy for Blair to apologize, but it doesn't mean very much," said Mayor Julio de Souza. "What happened to English justice and England, a place where police patrol unarmed?"
Menezes was killed in a London subway station as police investigated a wave of botched bombings the day before and the deadly transit bombings of July 7.
Witnesses said Menezes was wearing a heavy, padded coat when plainclothes police chased him into a subway car, pinned him to the ground and shot him dead.
While Menezes' relatives said he was working legally in Britain and had no reason to fear police, the BBC said Menezes' visa had expired, suggesting a reason why he might have run.
At a joint news conference in London with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Amorim said the Brazilian Embassy had told him Menezes was living legally in England. Brazilian correspondents also quoted Straw as saying that he understood that Menezes' situation was legal.
Souza said the root cause of Menezes' death was Blair's decision to back the US-led invasion of Iraq. That prompted the wave of terrorist attacks, the mayor said.
Menezes was shot eight times at Stockwell Tube station on Friday, not five times as had previously been reported.
The details of the number of rounds emptied into the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician after his pursuit through Stockwell station by an armed plainclothes squad emerged at the opening of an inquest into his death on Monday.
VENEZUELAN ACTION: Marco Rubio said that previous US interdiction efforts have not stemmed the flow of illicit drugs into the US and that ‘blowing them up’ would US President Donald Trump on Wednesday justified a lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out a day earlier against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the US to send a message to Latin American cartels. Asked why the military did not instead interdict the vessel and capture those on board, Trump said that the operation would cause drug smugglers to think twice about trying to move drugs into the US. “There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said while hosting Polish President
A French couple kept Louise, a playful black panther, in an apartment in northern France, triggering panic when she was spotted roaming nearby rooftops. The pair were were handed suspended jail sentences on Thursday for illegally keeping a wild animal, despite protesting that they saw Louise as their baby. The ruling follows a September 2019 incident when the months-old feline was seen roaming a rooftop in Armentieres after slipping out of the couple’s window. Authorities captured the panther by sedating her with anesthetic darts after she entered a home. No injuries were reported during the animal’s time on the loose. The court in the
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
Another tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG (liquefied natural gas) 2 project has docked in a Chinese port, ship-tracking data showed, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing. The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) tracking data indicated the Russian Voskhod LNG tanker was anchored at an LNG terminal in the port of Tieshan in Guangxi, China. The Russian flagged tanker, with a cargo of 150,000 cubic meters of LNG, was loaded up at the Arctic LNG 2 facility in Gydan in northern Siberia on July 19, LSEG data showed.
RSS