A Brazilian diplomat says New South Wales police have much explaining to do over the death of a student who was tasered on the weekend.

Roberto Laudisio Curti has been named in the Brazilian press as the 21-year-old student who died in inner Sydney on Sunday morning.

The State Government has appointed the New South Wales Ombudsman to oversee the investigation into the death.

Mr Curti's family is flying to Sydney from Brazil and have told the ABC they are not commenting at this stage.

Before he died he had been chased by six police officers, sprayed with capsicum spray and tasered.

Mr Curti may have stolen a packet of biscuits from a convenience store shortly before and was reportedly not armed.

Police are not commenting while they investigate and have defended their use of stun guns.

But security camera footage emerged yesterday showing Mr Curti being chased by police, and there are reports he was tasered by three different officers.

The Brazilian Consulate says they were first contacted by police to help find the man's family on Sunday afternoon.

Mr Curti's sister, who lives in Sydney, is reported by news agency O Globo as having contacted police on Sunday evening to report her brother missing.



'Desperate for information'

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The Brazilian Consul in Sydney, Andre Costa, says they are helping the family to find out why Mr Curti died.

"It's a very delicate situation of course, especially for the family back in Sao Paulo and for the relatives here in Australia as well," he said.

"They're really striving for information at this moment, that's all I can tell.

"They want to know exactly what happened to this young man, that he was so healthy and a good student, studying at a very good university in Brazil.

"He had friends here and family, so he went out just for fun... you're the young male on Saturday night and that happened to him.

"The family cannot understand at all, so they're desperate for information."

Mr Costa says the information provided by police has not been satisfactory so far.

"Of course we are very anxious about any other information regarding the circumstances of his death," he said.

A man who Brazilian media reports have named as Roberto Laudisio Curti, the Brazilian student who died after being tasered in Sydney on March 18, 2012. ( Globo )

"When you read the news you have a conflict of information, so that's not good at all, not for us, and above all not for the family in Brazil."

The death has been compared in the Brazilian media to the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by police in London in 2005 because they wrongly identified him as a terrorist.

Mr Costa says it is too early to say whether Mr Curti's death is also a case of mistaken identity.

"Up to this moment we have no other official position, I mean regarding mistrusting the police department," Mr Costa said.

"Up to this moment we are backing their investigation and waiting for the answers."