A police marksman who shot an innocent Brazilian on a London underground train wrongly believing him to be a suicide bomber offered his regrets to the victim's family yesterday.
The specialist firearms officer told an inquest into the death of electrician Jean Charles de Menezes he had been shocked and saddened when he discovered the mistake.
"I can't begin to put myself in the position that are faced with," said the officer, identified only as C12. "I offer my sincere condolences, I really, really respectfully do that."
Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head by a specialist firearms squad as he boarded an underground train in south London on July 22nd, 2005.
Undercover operatives had confused him with Hussein Osman, a suspect in a failed attack on July 21st, 2005, a plot that mirrored suicide bombings two weeks earlier that killed 52 on the London underground and bus network.
The Brazilian's mother, Maria Otone de Menezes, and brother Giovani da Silva were present to hear the officer's testimony.
The firearms officer, who fired three rounds at Mr de Menezes, was giving evidence in public about the shooting for the first time. He said he had felt "a sense of disbelief and . . . confusion" when he learned the day after that he had shot the wrong man.
"Everything I have ever trained for . . . proved wrong, and I'm responsible for the death of an innocent man," he said. "That's something I have got to live with for the rest of my life."
He said he would not have fired had Mr de Menezes stayed seated on the train at Stockwell underground station when the officer challenged him. But he had got up and walked towards him.
The officer said he had put his police issue Glock pistol to the Brazilian's head and fired three times.
"I had to be certain that life was extinct, that there wasn't any more threat, that this person could not detonate a bomb," he said.
- (Reuters)