LONDON — A British jury decided Friday that a string of police failures caused the death of a Brazilian electrician shot by anti-terrorism police after being mistaken for a suicide bomber — a ruling that prompted his family to demand a new investigation.
The jury at a coroner’s inquest rejected claims by London police that they lawfully killed Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old shot seven times at close range by police who followed him onto a subway car.
The jurors’ failure to exonerate the police is a blow to London’s force, which has insisted it was trying to protect the public from a suicide attack when its officers shot the unarmed man.
The dead man’s mother expressed satisfaction with the decision, and family members said they would press authorities to hold someone accountable.
“Today, I feel reborn,” said Maria Otone de Menezes in a statement read to reporters.
A coroner’s inquest, which is not a trial, is required in Britain to establish the facts when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes.
The jury deliberated for a week before issuing an “open verdict,” rejecting the only other possible finding — that the killing was lawful. The coroner had told the jury that it could not return a stronger verdict of unlawful killing.
De Menezes was shot by police as he sat aboard a subway train July 22, 2005, a day after terrorists tried to set off bombs on London’s transit system and two weeks after four suicide bombers killed 52 bus and subway commuters.
