The Associated Press
LONDON- The family of a Brazilian electrician shot dead by police officers who mistook him for a suicide bomber lodged an appeal Monday against a decision not to prosecute the individual marksmen.
Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, was shot seven times in the head as he sat aboard a train at a subway station in south London on July 22, 2005.
Two weeks earlier, four suicide bombers attacked London’s transit system, killing 52 people and themselves. Four other attempted attacks were thwarted the day before de Menezes was shot.
In July, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service ruled out bringing charges against individual police officers, and decided instead to prosecute London’s Metropolitan Police force under corporate health and safety legislation.
The decision provoked an angry response from civil libertarians and the de Menezes family.
Harriet Wistrich, lawyer for the family, said papers for a judicial review of that decision were lodged Monday at London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
“In respect of the decision not to prosecute any individual officers, we consider the Crown Prosecution Service has usurped the role of the jury in its assessment of the evidence,” Wistrich said in a statement.
She said the appeal would also challenge a decision not to provide the de Menezes family with a full copy of an independent report into the police operation.
“The Crown Prosecution Service’s uncompromising approach gives the appearance of a stitch-up,” Wistrich said.
London’s police force faces an unlimited fine if convicted of the health and safety charges at a trial scheduled to take place next October.