The Brazilian government said on Thursday it would send an investigation team to the UK next week after new revelations about the police shooting of a young Brazilian heightened anger over the death.
The government and relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes, who the British had said they thought was a suicide bomber, renewed their condemnation of the police because of press reports which cast doubt on the police account of the shooting.
A Brazilian delegation headed by Deputy Attorney General Wagner Goncalves will travel to London on Monday to speak directly with investigators, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
PHOTO: AP
Wagner will seek more "ample explanations, including in respect to the news recently disclosed by the press" in London, the statement said.
"This news, accompanied by startling images, on the tragic circumstances surrounding the death of Brazilian citizen Jean Charles de Menezes, aggravates the Brazilian government's sense of indignation," the ministry said.
Photographs released in London showed the body of the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician wearing a short jacket while police had said he was wearing a long coat and backpack that led them to think he was a suicide bomber.
"The family and friends are indignant over this confirmation of the [police] lie," Alex Alves Pereira, a cousin of the victim, told O Globo newspaper.
De Menezes was shot dead in Stockwell Underground station in London on July 22, a day after a failed attempt to repeat the London transportation bombings of July 7.
In the city of Gonzaga in Brazil, uncles and cousins said that the dead man's parents did not want to look at the photographs, but could not avoid doing so.
"We asked them not to turn on the radio or the TV but they couldn't resist. They saw the news and they cried a lot. They can't accept it," Alves said.
The Brazilian media has also strongly condemned the UK police.
"The British authorities owe Brazil, and international public opinion, a thorough inquiry into the murder of a peaceful and innocent man," O Globo newspaper said.
"If attitudes like this become the norm, terrorists will have obtained considerable success in their dark plan to destroy Western democracy," Folha de Sao Paulo said.
London Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair said at the time that the shooting was "directly linked" to the inquiry into the suicide bombings and that the victim had ignored police warnings.
Blair is now facing calls to resign, after leaked documents revealed that de Menezes was not wearing a heavy coat that could have concealed a bomb nor was he running to flee the police.
The documents, disclosed on Britain's ITV television, also revealed that de Menezes, who was on his way to work, was restrained by an officer when he was shot seven times in the head, and once in the shoulder, in front of commuters.
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