Head of London police says will not quit

LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) The chief of London's police force, Ian Blair, said today he would not resign after his force was found guilty of putting the public at risk over the killing of an innocent Brazilian.

Electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was gunned down after boarding an underground train in south London on July 22, 2005, by officers wrongly identified him as one of a group of men who tried to attack the city's transport system a day earlier.

Home Secretary (Interior Minister) Jacqui Smith said she continued to have full confidence in Blair's leadership of the police force, but the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have both said that he should resign.

Blair said he would have quit had the court concluded that there were ''systemic failures in the Metropolitan Police Service,'' but he would not resign over ''the events as the judge described, of a single day in extraordinary circumstances.'' He also said the force would probably not appeal the conviction.

Reuters RJ GC2142