The British police have identified the man mistakenly shot dead by its officers at the Stockwell tube station in London [Images] on Friday as a 27-year-old Brazilian citizen, hours after it admitted that he was not connected to the attempted suicide attacks in the city.

The dead man was identified as Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician who has been living in London for the last three years, the Metropolitan Police said in a brief statement issued on Saturday night.

• UK police shot wrong man

"He was not connected to incidents in central London on 21 July, 2005, in which four explosive devices were partly detonated," it said.

Scotland Yard had on Saturday said that the shooting was a tragedy as the man killed was not linked to the second wave of terrorist attacks in the city, triggering strong protests from rights groups and Muslim organisations.

"For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets," it said.

The statement had confirmed that the man was followed by the police from a house in Tulse hill in Stockwell area that was under surveillance.

The incident came amid a massive manhunt for four would-be suicide bombers who had failed in an attempt to trigger blasts in three London underground train stations and on a bus on Thursday in a repeat of the July 7 attack, which killed 56 people.

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