Man Killed Not Part Of UK Bombings

(CBS/AP)  Police said Saturday that a man shot and killed on a subway car had nothing to do with an investigation into a series of bombing attacks Thursday on London's transit system and they called the death was "a tragedy."

Police have identified the man they mistakenly shot to death as Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian citizen.

A Muslim spokesman said it was frightening that police had license to kill people on suspicion and that people would be afraid now to walk the streets or ride the subway.

The shooting Friday took place at a subway station in the southern London neighborhood of Stockwell.

But Scotland Yard said in a statement Saturday that "the man was unconnected to the incidents of Thursday 21 July."

Although they would not definitively rule out a connection with July 7, the announcement said the man, who has not yet been identified, was "probably unconnected" to the first bombings.

"For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets," said a spokesman, who spoke on customary condition of anonomity.

A spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, Azzam Tamimi, said "people will be afraid to walk the streets now, to take the tube.

"I feared that we'd arrive at this conclusion," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. "To give license to people to shoot someone dead like that on the basis of suspicion is very frightening."

"The problem in this particular incident is that the person seems to be colored, seems to be Asian. Now he can be of any religion, from any roots or region. This will cause a great anxiety and concern," Tamimi said.

CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that in the town of Aylesbury, someone tried to torch the house where one of the suicide bombers from the July 7 attack, Jermaine Lindsay, lived with his family.

Thames Valley Police said officers went to the unoccupied house in Aylesbury, 40 miles west of London after reports of a smell of gasoline in the street. They confirmed the presence of some kind of fuel.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page »