Menezes family in courtroom protest

8:00pm Thursday 4th December 2008

Relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes staged a courtroom protest - just minutes before jurors were sent out to consider their verdicts.

The 27-year-old Brazilian's cousins stood up in front of the jury and unveiled T-shirts displaying the message: "Your legal right to decide - unlawful killing verdict."

Coroner Sir Michael Wright directed the jury earlier that they could return only a verdict of lawful killing or an open verdict.

The legal team of the family of Jean Charles de Menezes has also withdrawn from the inquest into the Brazilian's death.

Michael Mansfield QC, the barrister representing the Menezes family, and his junior, Henrietta Hill, were absent from court when the jury returned to hear the coroner complete his summing up.

Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead by police marksmen at Stockwell Tube station in south London on July 22 2005 after being mistaken for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman.

The coroner's ruling out of unlawful killing leaves the jury with a straight choice between lawful killing or an open verdict.

He told the jurors to cast aside "any emotion" over the innocent Brazilian's shooting after hearing more than seven weeks of evidence.

The jurors will then rule whether a string of additional factors - including identification, photographs, communications and orders issued from the control room at New Scotland Yard - caused or contributed to the death of Mr de Menezes.

They will have to decide whether differences in police officers' accounts were caused by "failure of recollection" or by "misunderstandings and failures of communication" at the time, the coroner said.