Family of innocent Brazilian killed by police visits tragedy site

Relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician mistakenly shot dead by police who thought he was a suicide bomber, are due to meet on Thursday with independent investigators probing his death.

Police shot Menezes, 27, seven times in the head on July 22 as he boarded an underground train at Stockwell station in south London.

They were hunting men behind a botched attack the previous day and believed the electrician had a bomb.

On Wednesday the family visited Stockwell station to see the scene of his death and demanded justice for their slain son.

"Only Jesus knows our pain and suffering," said a tearful Maria Otone da Menezes, the dead man's mother. "We are here for justice."

On Thursday the family is set to meet the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) which is looking into the events that led to the shooting.

The incident came the day after four bombers failed in a bid to blow up three underground trains and a bus, and two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 people in an identical plot.

The family has demanded that the officers responsible for the killing should be arrested and prosecuted and said London police chief Ian Blair should also face punishment.

"We want to see those responsible caught and judged," the dead man's brother Giovani told a news conference, reports Reuters.

According to Guardian, the relatives also said they thought police might be withholding information. They said they were particularly skeptical of the police contention that some of the closed circuit television cameras in the station where de Menezes was shot had not been working, so that not all of the police chase was caught on tape.

Police have repeatedly apologized for the killing but deny covering up what happened. Ian Blair says his officers must have the right to shoot to kill in some cases.

De Menezes' family, who arrived Tuesday from Brazil, visited the flat where he had lived, then walked along the route he took to board a bus the morning he died.

Along the way, they met shopkeepers who had known him.

“He was a hardworking boy,” said his mother, who was often in tears. “They destroyed his life, and at the same time, destroyed mine,” informs Guardian.

P.T.