UK to speed compensation claim for Brazil victim

LONDON - The British government has promised to deal "sympathetically and quickly" with a claim for compensation from the family of a Brazilian who was shot dead by police in London after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was killed by police at Stockwell underground station in south London on Friday in what police admit was a tragic error.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, investigating his death, said on Monday Menezes was shot eight times.

The commission has said "the claim (for compensation) would be handled sympathetically and quickly", Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters at a joint news conference with his Brazilian counterpart Celso Amorim.

Straw also said police had promised to expedite the release of Menezes body to his family, described by Amorim as "humble".

Menezes' death, which has angered Brazilians, came a day after four bombs left on underground trains and a bus failed to explode in an attack apparently designed to mirror four suicide bombings on July 7 that killed 52 people.

Police said Menezes had emerged from a building that was under surveillance and had then taken a bus to Stockwell station, where he refused orders to halt and ran onto an underground train.

As relatives and friends struggled to understand why Menezes would have run from the police, Straw and Amorim both said they understood the Brazilian electrician, who friends say had been in the country for three years, was living legally in the country.

The Home Office has declined to comment on his immigration status.

Asked if he was satisfied with the government's response to the shooting, Amorim said it was too early to say.

"I think I can only give that reply in full when all the stages already mentioned have been fulfilled, when the investigation has been completed and if guilty people have been punished, if it was an accident or an error or whether it was something else, when the questions relating to the family have been settled," he said.

Amorim said he stressed to Straw the fight against terrorism had to be conducted with respect for human rights.

"Of course if things happen in the way that they apparently happened this time it may play into the hands of terrorism," he added.

Relatives and friends want to know why police did not attempt to stop Menezes as he travelled on the bus to the underground station and how exactly they ordered him to stop.

There are already over 100 witness statements, the Commission said.

The second wave of attacks has left the police scrambling to find four men they fear are prepared to blow up themselves and the public.

Despite the shooting of Menezes, police have defended their policy to shoot to kill suspected suicide bombers.

- REUTERS