Jean Charles De Menezes family lose human rights challenge

  • London
A mosaic of Jean Charles de Menezes displayed outside Stockwell Tube where he was shot down. Credit: Press Association.

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes have lost a legal challenge over the decision not to charge any individual police officer for his death.

Police shot the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician at Stockwell Tube station on July 22, 2005, after wrongly thinking he was a terrorist.

His family have been fighting for justice for more than a decade, and last year took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Lawyers for his family argued that the assessment used by prosecutors in deciding that no police officer should be charged with the shooting is incompatible with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which covers the right to life.

However, the Strasbourg court today found that UK authorities had not failed in their obligations under the article to conducting an investigation into the shooting which was capable of identifying and - if appropriate - punishing those responsible.

Judges found that Article 2 did not require the evidential test used to be lowered in cases were deaths had occurred at the hands of agents of the state.

The family have said they are "very disappointed and sad" at the ruling.

The government welcomed the decision by the court, saying that although the death of Jean Charles de Menezes was "tragic", it was right for the ECHR to uphold a decision not to prosecute the officers.