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[TonyGosling]

Police used dum-dum bullets on Brazilian shot at tube station


Vikram Dodd
Wednesday November 16, 2005
The Guardian

The Brazilian man killed by police who mistook him for a terrorist was left "unrecognisable" after being shot eight times by officers using "dum-dum" style bullets that are banned from use in warfare.

The Guardian understands from senior police sources that the thinking was that use of the bullets would minimise the chance of people in the immediate area of a shooting being injured by the bullets exiting from a suspected suicide bomber. Hollow point bullets are more likely to disintegrate in the body of the shot person, but they also inflict more damage.

A senior source told the Guardian that Jean Charles de Menezes was "unrecognisable" after the shooting because of the severity of the injuries the hollow tip bullets inflicted.

Reaction to the news from leading British Muslim groups was critical of the police. Azad Ali, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum and a key figure in relations between police and the Muslim community, said: "If this is true this will further exacerbate the community's already heightened concern about the police's approach. This will reinforce the view of Jean Charles de Menezes's family that this was an execution."

Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said: "It shows the degree that the Met has become a law unto itself and should not be allowed in a civilised society."

The revelation about the type of bullets used came on the day Ian Blair hoped to kick-start his controversial commissionership by delivering the flagship Richard Dimbleby lecture for the BBC on the future of the police service.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Chief officers can use whatever ammunition they consider appropriate for the operational circumstances."