Body of Man Shot by British Police to Be Flown to Brazil

The body of the Brazilian immigrant shot dead in a London subway train by British police who mistook him for a potential suicide bomber is due back in his homeland today amid continued demands for explanations and reparations.

Dignitaries and officials are expected to be on hand for the return of Jean Charles de Menezes’ body this morning and to attend what will probably be a hero’s funeral Friday. Menezes, an electrician who police say was acting suspiciously, was shot eight times at close range as horrified passengers looked on last week, one day after a series of botched transit bombings in the jittery British capital.

The tragic killing has sparked an outcry here in a country where fatal shootings by police are commonplace and rarely investigated.

“The city is in mourning,” Julio Maria de Souza, the mayor of Gonzaga, Menezes’ hometown, about 250 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, said by telephone Wednesday. “This is a small town, and we are like a big family. There is anger in the way it happened. How can the London police force, which is known to be one of the most competent in the world, kill first and then check his identity?”

The British government has apologized to the Menezes family and said it would handle any compensation claim “sympathetically and quickly.” Brazilian officials have continued to demand a complete accounting of the shooting.

Police and witnesses say that Menezes, 27, was wearing a large padded coat, conspicuous in the mild weather, and fled when undercover police officers approached him, raising fears that he might have a bomb beneath his clothes. The police, who had followed Menezes after he emerged from a housing complex under surveillance, chased him into a subway train in the Stockwell Station in South London, where they wrestled him to the ground and shot him once in the shoulder and seven times in the head.

His death has focused scrutiny on the British authorities’ “shoot-to-kill” policy for suspected suicide bombers. This week, the sidewalk outside the Stockwell Station was filled with a mound of bouquets in tribute to Menezes, along with angry placards calling for justice.

Menezes’ body is being brought to Governador Valadares, about 60 miles from Gonzaga in the state of Minas Gerais, a region long known for sending a large number of people abroad, both legally and illegally. There was speculation that Menezes ran from police because he had either entered Britain illegally or overstayed his visa. But this week, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was his understanding that Menezes was in the country lawfully.

De Souza said Menezes was one of 11 siblings.

“There is a general feeling of revulsion,” the mayor of Gonzaga said. “He was like a brother to everyone here.”

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Times special correspondent Vanora McWalters in London contributed to this report.