AP News, October 2nd, 2007
Police who shot dead a Brazilian man they took for a suicide bomber in a plot on London's transit system committed an error but not a crime, a police lawyer told a court Tuesday.
London's police force is on trial for allegedly violating health and safety laws after officers shot a man seven times in the head on a subway train on July 22, 2005, a day after a failed attempt to detonate bombs on three London subway trains and a double-decker bus. Police deny the charges.
Prosecutors argue that a catalog of police failures led to electrician Jean Charles de Menezes' death and put the safety of the public in danger. But defense lawyers, in their opening remarks, rejected the claims.
"A serious mistake was made in shooting him but, as we now know, every mistake is not a crime," defense lawyer Ronald Thwaites said.
Thwaites said that if the jury of six men and six women find the police guilty, it "would effectively remove the discretion that police officers have and need when deciding on the best time to act and the form their action should take."
Prosecutors investigating de Menezes' death failed to find enough evidence to charge anyone with murder or manslaughter, and Thwaites questioned whether a case under health and safety laws should have been brought at all.
"The prosecution is attempting to dictate to the police how they do their job, and are doing so from a position of near ignorance," Thwaites said.
Thwaites reminded the court that the police were acting during a period of extremely heightened insecurity.
Police were hunting four Muslim militants for a failed attack on the transit system _ an incident that came just two weeks after suicide bombings had killed 52 commuters.
Police Commander John McDowell, who was acting national coordinator of terrorism investigations at the time, told the jury that police feared the failed bombers would be highly motivated to try a second time.
Police put the apartment building where de Menezes, 27, lived under surveillance after a gym membership card left at the scene of one of the failed attacks led them to the address.
The police force has accepted its responsibility in de Menezes' death, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission has ruled out disciplinary action against any of the surveillance or firearms officers involved.
A decision on whether four senior officers should be disciplined has been deferred until after this trial.
The penalty for a conviction under health and safety laws is an unlimited fine.
