The hometown of the Brazilian mistaken for a suicide bomber in London and shot by British police buried him on a wooded hillside last night, as his shocked country demanded that the officers who killed him face justice.
A banner proclaiming 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes "a martyr to English terrorism" hung alongside others calling for peace, as relatives wept above the grave overlooking rugged, tropical farm country de Menezes hoped to return to one day.
"He was killed without the right to defend himself, without the right to identify himself, it was sheer stupidity," said Giovani da Silva, as hundreds of locals threw flowers into the grave of his younger brother, who was described as one of millions of poor Brazilians who travel abroad to find work.
Brazilians are used to violence in their big cities, but few can understand how British police could fire seven shots into the head of de Menezes, an easygoing electrician according to friends and family, in the belief he was about to blow himself up at a south London Underground train station.
British police say de Menezes raised suspicions when he ran from them last Friday when he left a house they had been monitoring to counter a bombing campaign, and appeared to be trying to escape in the rail car.
The police say the man was in Britain illegally at the time of his death.
The incident has created friction between the British and Brazilian governments after British Home Secretary Charles Clarke initially praised the police's action.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair later gave a full apology for the killing. But Brazilians want justice.
"There has to be a rigorous investigation to punish those responsible for carrying out a summary execution in the center of London," said Communications Minister Helio Costa, who represented Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.