An inquest into the shooting death of a subway passenger mistaken for a suspected terrorist opened in London on Monday with a statement that said police had been so worried about an imminent attack they believed an “instant killing” was the only option.
Two police officers, members of an elite firearms team, fired seven shots into 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes’ head as he sat aboard a London Tube train on July 22, 2005. The officers had mistaken de Menezes, a Brazilian who was working in London as an electrician, for a suspect in an attempted bombing of London’s transit system the day before.
Tensions were high in the capital because two weeks earlier four suicide bombers had attacked the city’s transit system and killed 52 people.
Surveillance teams had staked out a building where de Menezes and a subway bombing suspect both had apartments. Confusing him with the bombing suspect, they tracked de Menezes to Stockwell station, in south London. The firearms team was called in to prevent him from disappearing into the London Underground system.
The inquest, which could last as long as three months, will likely be the most detailed public examination of the events leading up to de Menezes’ death. Dozens of witnesses are expected to testify in a makeshift courtroom at London’s Oval cricket ground.
British law requires an inquest when someone dies unexpectedly of violent or unknown causes.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
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