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Witness provides more evidence in de Menezes case

Armed police officers fired at Jean Charles de Menezes for over 30 seconds when they killed him at Stockwell tube station in south London, according to a witness statement made to independent investigators and obtained by the Guardian.

The witness says the shots were fired at intervals of three seconds and that she ran for her life fearing terrorists had opened fire on commuters.

The death of the innocent Brazilian, who was mistaken for a suicide bomber, is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Much of the immediate eyewitness evidence after the shooting proved to be wrong. But the witness correctly said that 11 shots were fired -- a fact which was not made public at the time.

The account from Sue Thomason, a freelance journalist, gives new details of the shooting and of the terror witnesses endured.

In her statement she says: "The shots were evenly spaced with about three seconds between the shots, for the first few shots, then a gap of a little longer, then the shots were evenly spaced again."

De Menezes was killed on July 22 on a tube train after being followed from his flat by undercover officers and soldiers who were hunting terrorists behind failed bombing attacks on July 21.

On the morning of July 22 Thomason was on her way to work, and was reading a book as the train pulled into Stockwell.

Her statement to the IPCC says: "When the tube was stationary at the platform at Stockwell I recall shouting, it was a male's voice, it may have come from more than one male. People then started to get out of their seats and look in the direction where the shouting was coming from.

"I recall hearing gunshots ... The shooting was coming from the carriage to the left of me. When I heard the gunshots I thought it was terrorists firing into the crowd. I thought about getting behind a seat... After the initial first shots... I left the carriage."

She and other commuters started running along the platform to leave the station.

Her statement continues: "While I was making my way to the escalator I remember hearing more shots coming from behind me. I thought that I would be shot in the back... Half way up the escalator I remember looking behind me and hearing two more shots ... Once I got outside the station my legs went. I would say there was 10 or 11 shots fired. The shots were ... evenly spaced out [timewise]."

Thomason says two IPCC investigators who interviewed her were equipped with a map of Stockwell tube which had key features in the wrong place. This initially led them wrongly to challenge her account. In an email of complaint to the IPCC she wrote: "If the people investigating such a serious matter... can't even get the plan of the station correct for interviewees to point out where they were, then what chance does the rest of the case have?"
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