The British government expressed confidence yesterday in London police chief Ian Blair, under pressure over the police killing of a Brazilian electrician mistaken for a would-be suicide bomber.
London's police chief today defended his handling of the fatal shooting of a Brazilian electrician by his officers, insisting he still believed the dead man was a suicide bomber 24 hours after the killing.
Sir Ian Blair, Britain's most senior policeman, also suggested news media were concentrating too much on the shooting rather than the deadly suicide bombings police were investigating when they mistakenly killed 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes.
Sir Ian has come under heavy pressure over the July 22nd shooting on an underground train. Leaked documents from the investigation into the case last week exposed blunders and cast doubt on initial accounts from police and witnesses.
The shooting took place with the capital on edge, the day after a failed attempt to repeat suicide bombings by four British Muslims which killed 52 people two weeks earlier.
"The key component was that 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 newspaper.
Relatives of de Menezes have called on Blair to quit because of police mistakes and information they say was misleading. But Home Secretary (interior minister) Charles Clarke backed Sir Ian and his force last night.
He said no judgment should be passed on the shooting until the investigation was complete. Sir Ian defended his actions as two newspapers reported that units involved in the killing were blaming each other.
The broadsheet Observer and tabloid Sunday Mirror both said undercover officers who followed de Menezes - after he came out of an apartment block under observation as part of the police investigation - did not believe he posed an immediate threat.
The officers were shocked when armed police arrived at the train at Stockwell station in south London and shot him, the reports said, citing senior police sources.