Jean Charles de Menezes' cousin shares fury as police officer who shot him speaks for first time

The police marksman who shot dead has sparked outrage from his cousin, after the firearms officer spoke publicly for the first time.

Reacting to the policeman’s contribution to a new documentary, Katia da Silva, 44, tells The : "He doesn’t regret anything. Why has he decided to talk about this after 20 years?”

She was particularly upset by his description of the moment he shot , at close range in London’s Stockwell station on 22 July 2005 - shortly after the July 7 London terror attack - and how when he later showered, he was still removing tiny pieces of his skull from his hair.

Accusing him of “bragging about the brutality with which he took Jean’s life,” she adds: “He should never have been in the Met police.”

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Ms da Silva also finds it difficult to accept that the policeman was shown a grainy faxed photo of the terror suspect they were looking for, and had just ten seconds to memorise his face.

She says: “Operation Kratos was a high-level operation developed to stop terrorism. Would they really make such a basic error? No-one could memorise someone’s face in just seconds.”

She questions the officer’s allegation that Mr De Menezes acted suspiciously by getting off the bus at Brixton station and immediately getting back on, which he said was interpreted as an “anti-surveillance move”.

She says: “Brixton station was closed because of the terrorist attacks some days earlier, that’s why he got back on. He was an electrician and was in a hurry to get to his client.”

Refuting the marksman’s claims that Mr de Menezes advanced towards him as he pointed his revolver at his head on the Tube train, she adds: “On the train, everybody got up to get out as soon as the armed officers ran on, not just Jean. He would never have advanced at him, there was no physical contact. Jean was just a poor electrician with dreams of making a life for himself in London. It’s all lies. Hearing these things is hurtful for his family.”

On the policeman saying he doesn’t want to meet de Menezes’ family, she adds: “He’s never going to be a man to look in the eyes of my aunt, Jean’s mother. He’s not going to have the courage to do that. He took away her son.”

Another cousin of the electrician, Alex Pereira, said he has no sympathy for the policeman, adding: “Saying sorry after what he did it is very easy. But what prevailed at the moment he did it was prejudice and racism, that’s what really caused Jean’s death.

“If the man who had died had been Muslim or Arab they would have done everything to try to prove that he was guilty. But their bad luck was that Jean was just a poor simple guy from the interior of Brazil, they had to conclude that he was innocent.

“Because of him we’ll never get Jean back.”

• The Channel 4 documentary Shoot to Kill: Terror on the Tube, will be shown on November 10 and 11 on Channel 4.