[Mb-civic] CBC News - THOUSANDS MOURN BRAZILIAN SHOT BY BRITISH POLICE

Fri Jul 29 16:07:34 PDT 2005

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THOUSANDS MOURN BRAZILIAN SHOT BY BRITISH POLICE
WebPosted Fri Jul 29 05:43:52 2005

---Nearly all the residents in a Brazilian farming town squeezed into a
church Friday morning for the funeral of the man who was shot by British
police after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

After the ceremony at the Roman Catholic church, Jean-Charles de Menezes
was to be buried in his hometown, Gonzaga, a community of 6,000 people
that lies about 650 kilometres southwest of Brasilia.

As many as 10,000 mourners filed past his casket between the time it
arrived on Thursday and noon local time on Friday, police estimated.

The July 22 slaying of Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician who lived in
London, sparked shock and outrage in Brazilian communities around the
world and sparked demonstrations in Gonzaga.

On Friday, the town was draped in pennants and balloons in the colour of
the Brazilian flag: green, white and yellow. Some people had posted signs
on their homes and businesses that read: Jean, Martyr of British
Terrorism or We Want Justice.

Menezes was mistaken as a suspect by British police hunting the people
behind the failed July 21 attempts to bomb three subway trains and a bus
in the city.

 RELATED STORY: 3 London bomb suspects arrested: reports Plainclothes
 officers chased him onto a subway train, where he was shot by police
 seven times in the head and once in the shoulder, a police complaints
 commission heard on Monday.

The officers said Menezes ran after failing to obey police instructions.

                       FROM JULY 25, 2005: British
                    police shot Brazilian eight times

On Friday, Menezes' family and the Brazilian government reacted angrily
to the British government's statement a day earlier that the victim's
student visa had expired more than two years ago.

Brazil's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that the status of
Menezes' British visa "in no way alters the responsibility of British
authorities for the tragic death of an innocent, peace-loving
Brazilian citizen."

A requiem mass was also to be held on Friday evening in London, led by
the Rev. Frederico Ribeiro, chaplain in the Brazilian community in
London. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England, Cardinal Cormac
Murphy-O'Connor, was to attend.

Meanwhile, the investigations continue into the botched bombings on July
21 and the similar attacks that killed 56 people in London's transit
system two weeks earlier.

British police announced on Friday that the three remaining suspects from
the failed attacks were arrested during raids in London and Rome. The
fourth bombing suspect was arrested in Birmingham on Wednesday.