Blair backs Met chief
Tony Blair has given his full backing to the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, as the row over the killing of a 27-year-old Brazilian man continues.
The prime minister’s backing of the Britain’s most senior police officer comes after Sir Ian admitted yesterday he did not know his police officers had killed an innocent man until 24 hours after the shooting last month.
Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by armed police on an underground train in Stockwell, south London, on July 22nd after officers wrongly identified him as a possible suicide bomber.
A Downing Street spokeswoman confirmed to politics.co.uk that Sir Ian “enjoyed the prime minister’s full support”.
Deputy prime minister John Prescott, who is in charge while Tony Blair is on holiday, and home secretary Charles Clarke have also expressed their support for the police commissioner.
Asked by the BBC if Sir Ian had his “full and unqualified confidence”, Mr Prescott said: “Yes.”
Meanwhile senior Brazilian officials have arrived in London to investigate the events surrounding Mr Menezes’ death.
Two representatives from the Brazilian government will meet officials from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), who are investigating the death, as well as the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner John Yates.
They will seek reassurance that there was no police cover-up in the 24 hours following the shooting, despite Sir Ian’s insistence that the process was transparent.
“At that time – and for the next 24 hours – I and everybody who advised me believed the person who was shot was a suicide bomber,” Sir Ian told the News of the World yesterday on the immediate aftermath of the shooting, which happened the day after four men attempted to blow up bombs on three Tube trains and a bus in London.
He insists that it was not until the morning of the day after that he was informed the man was innocent.
However, legal representatives for the Menezes family, who are calling for the police chief’s resignation, are sceptical of this claim.
Lawyer Gareth Peirce said: “We express incredulity that the senior police officer would have made extravagant claims from the outset without first informing themselves of the true facts.”
The Menezes family has accused the police of releasing contradictory information about the incident, and of failing to effectively end misleading speculation about the shooting in the days that followed the incident.
Members of the Jean Charles de Menezes Family Campaign group are planning to gather outside Downing Street for a vigil today – a month after he was killed – while Alessandro Pereira is expected to give prime minister Tony Blair a letter demanding a public inquiry into his cousin’s death.
