Jean Charles De Menezes family phones may have been hacked

The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the 27-year-old electrician shot dead by armed police in the wake of the failed 21 July 2005 terror attacks, say they fear their phones may have been hacked by the News of the World.

Scotland Yard detectives have told Alex Pereira, a cousin of the dead Brazilian, that Jean Charles' mobile number was found in the personal files of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who was hired by the News of the World and served a prison sentence for hacking members of the royal family.

The relationship between the family of Mr de Menezes and the Metropolitan Police has long been fraught, with relatives yesterday expressing dismay that officers had not come to them sooner with the revelation that Mulcaire might have been hacking their phones.

A spokesman for the Justice4 Jean campaign said: "The Menezes family are bewildered as to why the police did not approach them with this information earlier, and fear the police may be attempting to cover up their own wrongdoing once more."

Jean Charles was shot on the morning of 22 July 2005 by armed officers in Stockwell underground station after they mistook him for the failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman.

In a letter to Mr Cameron, the Justice4Jean campaign also called on the Prime Minister to widen the scope of the phone-hacking inquiry to look at allegations that police leaked misinformation to News International-owned newspapers once it transpired that armed officers had killed an innocent man.