Brazilians end UK visit (re killing of De Menezes)

[Taxloss]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4184380.stm

Brazilian officials examining the police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, are due to leave Britain after a four-day mission to London.

The three met the lawyer for the family of the electrician and representatives from Scotland Yard and the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

The officials have said they do not believe there was a cover-up after Mr Menezes' death in Stockwell on 22 July.

But they think "someone should be considered guilty" over the shooting.

______________

No cover-up. No conspiracy.

[endarkenment]

1. you should be ashamed of yourself.

No coverup: the police and other government officials simply lied for weeks on end, lie after lie, until they couldn't lie anymore. At this point the only thing that they initially told the truth about is that there was a dead man on the floor of a subway and that somebody who works for the British government shot him.

No conspiracy: yes well, I suppose when it is official policy it is not technically a conspiracy.

Please continue to defend the execution of innocents in the Holy War On Some Terrorists We Don't Like Much.

Resist Fascism.

[Taxloss]

2. It seems there was a panicky attempt to obscure some facts

in the immediate aftermath of the killing. I share the De Menezes family's incredulity that such a wrong version of events could have been presented as fact. I think Ian Blair should resign and that the shooter should be prosecuted.

The fact that the entire apparatus of the state failed to stop this being exposed within a few days demonstrates how no such attempt was made. This is being independently and publicly investigated - how clear is that? The De Menezes family, their lawyers, and their campaign, do not believe there was a cover up or a conspiracy - should they be ashamed of themselves?

I appreciate that you do not agree with me, and you have a perfect right to, but the bullying tone of a lot of the pro-conspiracy posts on these threads is distasteful and offensive. You are among the culprits, this post in point.

[endarkenment]

6. "the shooter should be prosecuted"

for following direct orders from a metro police command? So then the person who gave that order should of course be prosecuted, as should everyone involved in the implementation of the secret policy (kratos) that made this happen. Or did you perhaps mean that the UK should pull an abu ghraib here and just punish the grunts for doing what they were told to do?

"The fact that the entire apparatus of the state failed to stop this being exposed within a few days demonstrates how no such attempt was made."

That's rich. Lie after lie after lie, and then when it all unravels - it wasn't a coverup because it unraveled. So it is only a coverup if it succeeds.

By the way it was several weeks later that a major leak from inside the government made it into the British press and exposed everything as a pack of lies in the MSM. It was us tinfoil hat idiots and bullies out in cyberspace who kept gnawing incessantly at the glaring contradictions in the official pack-o-lies that did all the 'exposing within a few days' which exposing you found insulting, stupid, uncalled for, a rush to judgement etc. etc. etc. And you continue to try to sweep this mess under the rug.

[Taxloss]

8. There's a big difference between permitting something and ordering it.

Kratos is a set of conditions - which you know I have criticised strongly - that permit the use of deadly force. They do not insist on it.

You knew you details of the case at exactly the same time I did, not before. What I found insulting was the slapdash use of language such as "death squads", and the implication that this killing was motivated on race grounds, which characterised a lot of the pro-conspiracy threads before the police story disintegrated. You can paint yourself as a defender of truth as much as you like, but you and I were both on those threads and saw what was said. The difference between us is that as soon as it became clear that I had been wrong to back the police account, I withdrew my remarks and apologised. But whenever I post fresh evidence that this was a blunder, not a plan, from reliable sources such as the BBC, The Guardian, the De Menezes family, their lawyer, their campaign, and the government of Brazil, I seem to be the one who gets targeted. Either that or claims are made that ALL these sources have been somehow compromised.

There was, it seems, a hopelessly bungled cover-up in the lower ranks, probably more out of panic than design. But the path to exposure was set when senior police officers expressed to Ian Blair their unhappiness with the situation the day after the shooting, and from that point on the emergence of the truth was inevitable. And there was no attempt at a cover-up from central government - none.

[endarkenment]

9. The team that executed de Menezes

was not the team that had the house and de Menezes under surveillance. The death squad were dispatched explicitly to execute a person (de Menezes) who was thought to be a terrorist. They were trained explicitly to execute their targets without warning. They were given orders to execute de Menezes. The only 'blunder' here is that de Menezes wasn't pakistani. Had he been I believe that the official story would have remained in place.

de Menezes could not have been mistaken for a 'ticking bomb' threat: no backpack, no bulky clothing, not even any odd behavior. The poor fellow got up, walked out the door of his apartment building, got on the bus, got off the bus, got a paper, paid his fare and sat down on the train. All under close surveillance. So why kill him? Unpleasant question that you really are determined to pretend should not even be asked. Just a big old blunder.

You keep cherry picking the bits of this story that make it comfortable for you, acceptable for you. I'm truly sorry that you cannot deal with the full truth.

[Taxloss]

14. Again, you're ascribing racial motives.

Convenient for you to forget that the 7/7 bombers were British - as were their emulators on 21/7.

(And several accounts say there was a warning - but you can ignore those in your own cherry picking.)

"Why kill him?" is precisely the question that has been and is being asked by the IPCC and Brazilian investigations. Why would I start threads about this if I wanted to dodge the issue? The uncomfortable fact you and your kin are going to have to face up to at some point is that this was not some dark conspiracy. Do you disagree with the version of events presented by the De Menezes family and the Brazilian authorities?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

10. If this is all a conspiracy, then it is a highly incompetent one

After finding out they had shot an innocent person, then why did the police chief apologise and admit it was a mistale? Had they wanted to efficiently cover their tracks, the UK government/Scotland Yard could have planted explosives on De Menezes and said he was a suicide bomber. How could we have known? For all this to have been a top-down conspiracy it would appear that it had been planned by 5 year olds.

Inconsistencies are frequent as far as the media is concerned, but that's the nature of media. They often receive information from "sources" and will report it even if it's hearsay because they're frightened that the public will change channel.

I haven't seen any evidence that the British government or senior Scotland Yard police decided to assassinate De Menezes. People can only project motives on other people when the evidence doesn't exist, to fit suspicions or desires around a hypothesis.

"It was us tinfoil hat idiots... that did all the 'exposing within a few days.'" Yelling "Fascists", "police state", is that what you call 'exposing'? Were you on the streets of London examining evidence, or googling links from prisonplanet?

[endarkenment]

11. Can't stop defending summary executions.

Odd position for an anarcho-socialist.

"It was us tinfoil hat idiots... that did all the 'exposing within a few days.'" Yelling "Fascists", "police state", is that what you call 'exposing'? Were you on the streets of London examining evidence, or googling links from prisonplanet?

No I was looking for contradictions in official statements as reported by the media. I actually didn't even start looking until the Sunday after the shooting when 'ooops we shot a Brazilian' slipped out. The 400 lb Gorilla in the room was the 'he ran away from the police ignoring warnings to stop' and 'he had to be shot dead in the head because he was thought to have a bomb and he could have blown himself up in an instant'. But you and your fine friends would not listen. You probably still don't get it. You are so busy defending this crap (defense rev 4.0: it was all a big mistake) that you cannot see what is right in front of you.

It is not particularly interesting that the authorities lie to cover their asses, what is interesting is which lies they choose to tell.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

12. "Can't stop defending summary executions"

That is an insult and a gross disingenuous misinterpretation of my position.

I have never EVER done any such thing. It is a gutter trash debating tactic and you should know better.

[daleo]

3. Mr Menezes was from a poor area of Brazil

Given the nature of governments all over the world (even a somewhat leftish one as Brazil currently has) they are not likely to go all out over a poor person (e.g. cut off diplomatic relations). However, I think they are telling the U.K. government that they won't be satisfied unless at least one reasonably highly placed scapegoat is found. They have to show their public some honor has been satisfied.

[Taxloss]

4. That may be true.

Brazil would not terminate diplomatic relations over this, but it could embarrass our government if it wanted to, without much diplomatic fallout. And yet it has chosen not to.

I know it's an unpopular position on DU, but I simply do not buy the conspiracy theory on this one.

[sasha031]

5. Keystone cops

Just a very sad story over zealous cops and a dark skinned male.

I had spent some time in the UK about a year ago, I had read then we were sending our security people to train their police squad for terrorist training. Wish I had the link,...Got a feeling the Uk will become as nutty as ours.

[endarkenment]

7. Wrong take.

Not over zealous cops. Special team trained to do exactly what they did who did exactly what they were trained to do. Keep thinking that this was just 'over zealous' cops if it makes it easier to deal with.

[Junkdrawer]

13. No cover-up.??????????????????

Oh yeah, the police have told a consistent story from day one. The guy had a heavy coat on, resisted calls to stop, and jumped over the turnstiles. Right? :sarcasm: