THE Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police denied yesterday that he was “kept in the dark” about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in a counter-terrorist operation.

The Brazilian electrician was shot seven times in the head on a train at Stockwell Underground station on July 22 in a botched operation to catch suicide bombers.

Sir Ian Blair, who is under investigation by police watchdogs over allegations by the dead man’s family that he and other Scotland Yard staff misled the public over the shooting, said yesterday: “I was not kept in the dark.”

Speaking as a team from the Independent Police Complaints Commission completed a report on the shooting, he said: “We will have to account for what happened in the dreadful set of events. But there is no suggestion at all that the commissioner or anybody else was kept in the dark.”

After the shooting, Sir Ian said publicly that Mr de Menezes had been challenged and shot after refusing to obey police orders.

A statement by Scotland Yard also said that his clothing and behaviour added to the suspicions of surveillance officers at the Tube station.

However, within hours Scotland Yard commanders voiced fears that police may have blundered over the death of Mr de Menezes. According to police sources, their warnings were not heeded in the confusion and panic.

Sir Ian has already said that he did not learn that an innocent man had been killed until mid-morning of the following day. Scotland Yard sources have said that Mr de Menezes was not identified until some point overnight after the shooting.

Yesterday Sir Ian, interviewed on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, said that the investigations into what he said and the police operation would be dealt with transparently by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Asked about his own position, he said: “The man at the top is responsible, utterly responsible, and I will deal with that in due course. Conjecture about possible resignations is, frankly, not worth the air time.”

Sir Ian said that the shooting was “a dreadful tragedy. On that morning the Metropolitan Police was facing the gravest operational crisis we had ever known with the knowledge there were four attempted suicide bombers on the loose. That left us responding to a completely unique situation in the Western world.

“That is not an excuse. It is merely just part of the context.”

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