Officer speaks out over 2005 shooting

A senior firearms officer who shot dead a man wrongly suspected of being a terrorist 19 years ago is to speak publicly for the first time in a new documentary.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was pinned down and shot in the head by officers in Stockwell station in south London on 22 July 2005, following the 7 July bombings.

The police marksman is to appear on Channel 4’s Shoot To Kill: Terror On The Tube after remaining anonymous since the killing.

Alison Pomeroy, head of documentaries at the channel, said she hoped his personal testimony would “help the British public understand… what became one of the biggest crises in British policing history”.

She added that the interview would also help people to understand “the complexity of the atmosphere in London that summer”.

Mr de Menezes, an electrician from Brazil, was followed and shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder at Stockwell Underground station by two police marksman who mistook him for a suicide bomber.

The incident followed heightened tensions a fortnight after the London bombings – in which four suicide bombers killed 52 people.

The day before Mr de Menezes was killed by police, would-be suicide bombers targeted the London transport network again, but their devices failed to explode.

Scotland Yard confirmed Mr de Menezes was not connected to the attacks the day after his death.

The documentary will look at the marksman’s “understanding of the role of the police as ‘goodies vs baddies’” and “the pressure of being at the centre of one of the most controversial moments in the history of British policing”.

In 2006, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that no police officers should be prosecuted over Mr de Menezes’ killing, but the Metropolitan Police was fined £175,000 with £385,000 costs after being found guilty of endangering the public.

The documentary will air on 10 and 11 November.

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