No order to shoot Menezes: Officer

12 April 2012

The officer in charge of police who killed innocent Jean Charles de Menezes thinking he was a would-be suicide bomber has denied giving an order to shoot him.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick told the Old Bailey that she used the word "stop" and expected a "conventional armed challenge" from firearms officers - meaning the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician would be stopped from entering the Underground.

She told the jury: "The death of Mr de Menezes is a terrible tragedy and one that I, and I think the whole of the Metropolitan Police, regret. I think he was the victim of the most extraordinary and terrible circumstances."

Officers mistook him for would-be suicide bomber Hussain Osman, codenamed Nettletip, and he lived in the same block of flats in Scotia Road, south London.

Ms Dick was giving evidence at the trial of the Metropolitan Police, which is accused of a "catastrophic" series of failures leading up to the death of Mr de Menezes, who was shot seven times at Stockwell Tube station on July 22 2005.

Ronald Thwaites QC, defending, asked: "Did you use the word 'stop'?"

She replied: "I did at one point." She also recalled using the words "challenge" and "arrest" to convey different types of stop.

She said: "My anticipation was that the firearms officers would challenge the person I believed to be Nettletip and that would be a conventional challenge in order to prevent him at that stage, and I thought that would be possible, to prevent him going further.

"I absolutely anticipated that it would be an armed conventional challenge."

Mr Thwaites asked: "Did you give any instruction that he would be shot?" She replied: "No, I did not."

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