A police officer who shot an innocent man he suspected was a terrorist in the wake of the 7/7 London bombings has spoken about the killing for the first time.
Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, was killed a fortnight after suicide bombers targeted three Tube lines and a London bus on 7 July 2005, killing 52 people.
Now one of the firearms officers who shot Mr de Menezes defended his actions, saying he was certain “we were going to die” if he did not act.
Mr de Menezes, who was from Brazil, lived in an apartment block that had been linked to one of several suspects who had planned to target the capital’s transport network a second time on 21 July.
The following day Mr de Menezes was followed by officers and shot seven times by two marksmen in a train carriage at Stockwell Tube station in south London.
“Reliving it in this detail is painful,” the officer, known only as C12, said on Channel 4’s documentary Shoot To Kill: Terror On The Tube.
“I want to make sure that people understand these decisions, although they’re taken quickly, they’re not taken lightly.
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“Because of his actions, what he did, the information we received, it left me with no other conclusion than I had to act or we were going to die.”
The marksman claimed Mr de Menezes’ demeanour led him to believe the electrician was about to detonate a bomb.
The way Mr De Menezes stood up had “triggered” something in his head, C12 claimed.
“He knew who we were. He still continued on his forward momentum as I had my weapon up, pointing at his head,” the officer recalled.
Read more: Jean Charles de Menezes’s family says ‘we will never get justice’
“I remember the surveillance officer then in full body contact with him, and apparently what he was trying to do was pin his hands so that he couldn’t detonate.
“I’m expecting an explosion at any moment, he’s gonna blow. We’re gonna die. But that’s the nub of it.
“If I don’t do something now, we are all going to die.”
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Two days after he was killed, Scotland Yard confirmed Mr de Menezes was not connected to the 21 July attacks.
Dame Cressida Dick, who was promoted to Metropolitan Police commissioner in 2017, led the operation in which Mr de Menezes died.
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A jury cleared her of any blame in his death but the Met was fined £175,000 with £385,000 costs after being found guilty of endangering the public.
Shoot To Kill: Terror On The Tube will air on 10 and 11 November on Channel 4.
