Guardian writers trace the life and last minutes of Jean Charles de Menezes.
No journey by London bus or tube is quite as mundane these days as it once was and yet, by all accounts, Jean Charles de Menezes saw his own intended journey, last Friday morning, as nothing more than another day at work.
The 27-year-old Brazilian-born electrician had been due in Kilburn, to help fit a fire alarm. The only impact the previous day's attempted bombings seemed to be having on him was the one they were having on other Londoners:
they were making him late."He rang me ... saying that he would be a little late because the tube lines weren't working properly," said Gesio de Avila, a builder and close friend who Mr De Menezes had been due to meet that morning for the fire alarm job. "I said, 'OK, as soon as you get to Kilburn, call me.' That was the last conversation I had with him."...
"I think that the police are inventing this thing about the thick jacket," said Mr Avila, whose number police found in Mr Menezes's mobile phone.
Mr Pereira denied his cousin would have jumped over the barrier. "Running, maybe. But not running from the police. Everyone runs for the underground. But he wouldn't jump. Why would he jump?"
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