by seemslikeadream » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:57 pm
<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060129/ts_afp/britainattacksbrazilpolice&printer=1" target="top">news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060129/ts_afp/britainattacksbrazilpolice&printer=1</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>London police 'faked evidence' on shot Brazilian: report<br>Sun Jan 29, 7:06 AM ET<br> <br>Undercover London police officers faked vital evidence to cover up their fatal role in the shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, mistaken for a suicide bomber, a newspaper has alleged.<br><br>Special Branch officers from London's Metropolitan Police tried to change a surveillance log detailing the electrician's movements to hide the fact that they had wrongly identified him, the News of the World weekly claimed.<br><br>De Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head on a London Underground train at Stockwell station in south London.<br><br>He was killed on July 22 last year, the day after an alleged attempt to replicate the July 7 attacks by four suspected suicide bombers which killed 52 innocent Underground and bus commuters.<br><br>The alleged cover-up meant the blame for the tragedy would have been pinned on senior Met Police commanders or the armed police who fired the bullets -- leaving them open to murder charges, the newspaper said.<br><br>The revelations are apparently contained in the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)'s report into the death, which was delivered to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) 10 days ago.<br><br>A Special Branch officer mistakenly reported that De Menezes was Hussein Osman, 27, who is facing charges of conspiracy to murder in connection with the July 21 incident.<br><br>However, once they realised their fatal error, the log was altered to read that no positive identification had been made.<br><br>A government department source told the tabloid: "It says the log was actually tampered with in a major way.<br><br>"In particular the words AND and NOT were inserted about the Osman ID, so it read 'and it was not Osman' rather than 'it was Osman'."<br><br>The log was allegedly changed at a debriefing meeting 10 hours after the Brazilian was gunned down.<br><br>It had been produced by colleagues of the officers listening to the team's radio messages.<br><br>During the debriefing, the officers were allowed to check for errors and amend them -- but crucially, the alterations were not explained and signed as they apparently should have been.<br><br>The newspaper quoted the IPCC report as reading: "This looks like an attempt to try and distance Special Branch from the decision (to shoot De Menezes)."<br><br>The source said: "It was blatant, it was clumsy.<br> <p></p><i></i>
