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Shot Brazilian’s family demand British justice

* Mother wants police to be punished
* Menezes’ family visits death scene

LONDON: The family of a Brazilian man who was mistakenly killed by London anti-terror police arrived in Britain on Tuesday demanding that those responsible for his death be punished.

The relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot repeatedly in the head by police who mistook him for a suicide bomber after terror attacks in July, appeared gaunt and angry as they arrived at London’s Heathrow airport.

The victim’s mother Maria Otone de Menezes told reporters: “We are searching for justice.” Speaking through an interpreter, she said: “I want the police to be punished.” The family, including the victim’s brother and sister-in-law and three young children, were escorted through the west London airport by a clutch of officers from the city’s Metropolitan Police.

The force is paying for the family to come to London, where they are expected to be updated on the inquiry into his death.

De Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician was killed on July 22, a day after a failed attempt to repeat the July 7 attacks that killed 56 people, including four presumed suicide bombers, in blasts on three subway trains and a bus. Police mistook the Brazilian for a suicide bomber and shot him repeatedly in the head after he boarded a train at Stockwell subway station in south London.

Later, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes visited the scene of his death on Wednesday.

His parents, Matozinhos Otone Da Silva and Maria Otone da Menezes, his brother, Giovani, and his wife and three children were taken by friends to Stockwell station to see where he died so violently.

They stopped briefly to look at an impromptu memorial of messages of sympathy that has been set up near the entrance to the station before being taken down to the platform. They flew in from Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday - at British police expense - demanding justice for his death and seeking information on the circumstances.

Police have admitted making a mistake and apologised, and early details of a supposedly secret independent inquiry into the killing have revealed a series of communications blunders between police teams with shoot-to-kill authority.

Metropolitan Police chief Ian Blair has asked to meet the family and apologise in person, but the family’s lawyers have refused.

The shooting happened the day after four bombers botched a bid to blow up three underground trains and a bus, and two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 people in an identical plot. agencies

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