God Bless You

British prosecutors said they had "insufficient evidence" to charge police officers with any crime for shooting to death a Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber last year.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said however that London's Metropolitan Police as a whole should be prosecuted under health and safety laws for the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes on July 22 last year.
The announcement takes the heat off Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, Britain's top police officer, who has faced calls to resign since the 27-year-old electrician was shot seven times in the head on a London Underground train.
De Menezes was shot at Stockwell Underground train station in south London a day after an alleged failed attempt to replicate the suicide attacks on the British capital's public transport system on July 7, 2005, in which 56 people died, including the four bombers.
Relatives of the victim who have long sought charges against the officers involved expressed outrage at the decision as they sought the support of a Brazilian government delegation visiting London.
"I am very disappointed. I was expecting a negative reply and it is shameful," a cousin of the victim, Patricia da Silva Armani, told a London news conference.
The CPS said that in order to successfully prosecute the two officers who fired the fatal shots, it would have to prove they did so without actually believing that he was a suicide bomber.
In a statement read by its senior lawyer Stephen O'Doherty, the CPS said the officers appeared to have acted in good faith.
Though "a number of individuals had made errors in planning and communication" that led up to the tragedy, there was "insufficient evidence" to prosecute any police officers, O'Doherty added.
"The two officers who fired the fatal shots did so because they thought that Mr. de Menezes had been identified to them as a suicide bomber and that, if they did not shoot him, he would blow up the train, killing many people."
The evidence supported their claim that they "genuinely believed" De Menezes was a suicide bomber and therefore they could not be prosecuted for murder, manslaughter or any other related offence, he said.
But the CPS said it had evidence to prosecute the office of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner under sections 3 and 33 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 for failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare of De Menezes.
He concluded that "operational errors" indicated that there had been a breach of the duties owed to those outside the police department under the laws.
But he added: "I must stress that this is not a prosecution of Sir Ian Blair in his personal capacity".
A successful health and safety prosecution would mean an unlimited fine on the police authority.
The CPS also looked into allegations that a logbook of events had been altered to hide the fact that De Menezes had been mistakenly identified, but O'Doherty said experts could not agree to the required standard that this had happened.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which investigated the shooting, said it was now in the process of obtaining and a serving a summons on the Office of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
Though pleased no officers would be charged, the Metropolitan Police said it was "concerned and clearly disappointed" at the decision to prosecute the force for safety breaches.
18 Juy 2006