( Gulfnews ) London: Police marksmen almost killed a Tube driver and a fellow officer in the chaos that ended in the death of Jean Charles de Menezes , a court heard yesterday.
The Met (Metropolitan Police) attempt to follow and stop the 27-year-old, who was wrongly suspected of being a terrorist, was so badly planned and run that it "invited disaster," it was claimed.
The Old Bailey yesterday afternoon heard of the extraordinary scenes at Stockwell Tube station in which an armed officer pointed his gun at the train driver cowering in the tunnel. And one of the surveillance officers who had tailed De Menezes was dragged along the floor of the carriage by one of the armed officers who was pointing his weapon at his chest, despite protestations that he was a member of the force.
Prosecutor Clare Montgomery, Queen's counsel, told the jury: "You may think the fact the police ended up pointing a gun at another policeman and mistaking a Tube driver for a terrorist gives you a clue as to just how far wrong the operation had gone."
An innocent man died because of blunders at every level at Scotland Yard and the lives of Londoners were put at risk, the jury was told.