Mar 30 2016 09:55:47
•Brazilian shot on the subway weeks after 2005 London bombings
•ECHR says Article 2 human rights law not breached by the U.K.
By Jeremy Hodges
(Bloomberg) --
U.K. police were right not to press charges against officers involved in the shooting of a Brazilian electrician they mistook for a suicide bomber in 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled.
"The Court found that the domestic authorities had not failed in their obligations," under EU human rights law "to conduct an effective investigation into the shooting," judges at the Strasbourg court said Wednesday. "Both the individual responsibility of the police officers involved and the institutional responsibility of the police authority had been considered in depth."
Jean Charles De Menezes, 27, was shot dead by Metropolitan Police Service firearms officers at Stockwell Underground station in south London on July 22, 2005, two weeks after suicide bombers attacked the city's transport network, killing 56 people.
The day before he was shot unexploded bombs were found on subway trains and buses sparking a city-wide search for suspects. Two of the terrorists lived at the same London address as de Menezes, who had no links to terrorism.
While U.K. prosecutors decided not to prosecute individual officers for the shooting, the police service was fined 175,000 pounds ($252,400) in 2007 under health and safety laws.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Jeremy Hodges in London at jhodges17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net
Christopher Elser, Kit Chellel
