The British police officers who shot dead an innocent Brazilian man whom they mistakenly believed to be a suicide bomber on the London Underground will not face criminal charges, but their department will be prosecuted for violating health and safety laws, lawyers were quoted by Sky news as saying on Monday.

Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old electrician, was shot seven times in the head by British police on a Tube train in south London after being mistaken for a suicide bomber on July 22, 2005.
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"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," Stephen O'Doherty, a senior Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer, said in a statement.

"In order to prosecute those officers we would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt they did not honestly and genuinely hold those beliefs," he said.

"In fact, the evidence supports their claim that they genuinely believed Mr. de Menezes was a suicide bomber," he added. This evidence led to them being acquitted of murder charges.

However, the department of London's Metropolitan Police which employs the officers would be prosecuted for violating health and safety laws, prosecutors said.

Asad Rehman, speaking for the Justice 4 Jean campaign group, said the family "will be very, very disappointed if no officers are held to account for their actions."

Reports said the family of de Menezes' legal options include seeking a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision, pursuing a private prosecution, awaiting the outcome of the inquest, or launching a civil case for damages.

(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2006)