Strasbourg: The European Court of Human Rights began hearing a case Wednesday against the British government over the police killing of a Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber soon after the deadly July 2005 bombings.
Nearly a decade after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, his family are still fighting to see someone prosecuted for the 27-year-old`s killing.
De Menezes, an electrician, was shot seven times in the head by police officers in a London underground station two weeks after the July 7 attacks in which four suicide bombers killed 52 people.
Police mistook him for failed bomber Hussain Osman, who had attempted to place explosives at another train station the day before the shooting, and who lived in the same block of flats as de Menezes.
"This is a case in which an entirely innocent man was deliberately shot by the agents of the state," Hugh Southey, lawyer for the family, told the court on Wednesday.
"When the society is to tolerate the use of that power (to kill), there must be accountability. Officers are given extreme powers -- they must know they will be held responsible when they fail to comply with the law," he added.
The killing of de Menezes provoked a series of inquiries that were heavily critical of police tactics, supervision and individual decisions.
But British prosecutors repeatedly decided not to bring a case against any individual officer, arguing it would be too difficult to prove that they did not fear for their lives.
In May 2007, the police disciplinary board said it would not sanction any of the officers on similar grounds.
"They thought he was a suicide bomber," Clare Montgomery, lawyer for the British government, told the European court.
"For that reason they decided that they had to kill him as quickly as possible."
It has been seven years since the family filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, in which they argue that the government has failed in its duty to ensure accountability and punishment of those responsible for de Menezes`s death.
The case has been led by de Menezes`s cousin, Armani Da Silva, after other members of the family decided to draw a line under the incident several years ago.
Da Silva`s lawyers argue that police officers ought to prove they had not only an honest belief they were in danger, but also that their fear was "reasonable".
They will also argue that British prosecutors were overly cautious in refusing to start a trial against the police officers, and that the threshold for launching a trial is too high.
Although the family has failed to implicate individual officers, they did succeed in prosecuting the police force as a whole for breaching health and safety regulations, receiving £175,000 (240,000 euros, $270,000) in compensation.
They received further damages in 2009 through a civil action. The amount was kept confidential.
Further inquests into the death have backed the initial investigations, though the police have repeatedly apologised for their fatal mistake.
"(De Menezes) was a totally innocent victim and in no way to blame for his untimely death," the police said at the time of the compensation deal in 2009.
