LONDON - JURORS at an inquest into death of an innocent Brazilian mistakenly shot by police in an anti-terror operation cannot rule he was killed unlawfully, a coroner said on Tuesday.

The former High Court judge overseeing the London inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes told the jury that they can only reach a verdict of lawful killing or an 'open verdict.'

After seven weeks of evidence in the closely-watched inquest, coroner Michael Wright told the jury that a verdict of unlawful killing was 'not justified.'

Mr de Menezes was shot seven times in the head at a London Underground train station on July 22, 2005, the day after a failed attempt to replicate the attacks of July 7 when four suicide bombers killed 52 people.

Police shot him in a train that had stopped at a south London train station after following him in the mistaken belief he was failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman, who was then on the run and lived in Mr de Menezes's block of flats. -- AFP