Blair dogged by de Menezes shooting

By Mark Trevelyan

LONDON (Reuters) - Controversy has dogged London police chief Sir Ian Blair throughout his two years in charge of Scotland Yard, but the shooting by his officers of an innocent Brazilian man left his job hanging by a thread.

At the height of a vast manhunt for four would-be suicide bombers, police mistook Jean Charles de Menezes for one of the suspects and shot him repeatedly in the head as he boarded a London underground train on July 22, 2005.

Relatives of the dead man joined Britain's two main opposition parties on Thursday in demanding Blair's resignation after a court found the police had been guilty of putting the public at risk.

But the government said it had full confidence in Blair, who told reporters outside London's Old Bailey court that he would stay in his job.

Looking grave but determined, he expressed his sympathy for the Brazilian's family but insisted the shooting took place in extraordinary circumstances and there was "no evidence at all of systematic failure" by his force.

For the past two years Blair, 54, has been haunted by a crisis that engulfed him only five months after he took charge of London's Metropolitan Police.

On July 7, 2005, four young British Muslims blew themselves up on London's transport system, killing themselves and 52 others in the first suicide bombings by Islamist militants in western Europe.

Two weeks later, with the investigation in full swing, the capital was rocked a second time when four men tried to repeat the attacks on three underground trains and a bus.