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.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image