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'''Jeremiah Joseph Duggan''' (10 November 1980 – 27 March 2003) was a British-Jewish student at the ] who died in disputed circumstances in Wiesbaden, Germany. His death became controversial because it occurred while he was attending a youth cadre school organized by the ], an international network led by the American political activist ]. '''Jeremiah Joseph Duggan''' (10 November 1980 – 27 March 2003) was a British-Jewish student at the ] who died in disputed circumstances in Wiesbaden, Germany. His death became controversial because it occurred while he was attending a youth cadre school organized by the ], an international network led by the American political activist ].


The German police concluded Duggan had committed suicide after he ran for ten minutes down a busy road into oncoming traffic; he was struck by two cars and thrown into the path of a third. In November 2003 a British coroner ruled that he had suffered fatal head injuries during the collisions, but rejected a suicide verdict and said Duggan had been in a state of terror when he died.<ref name=SamuelsFeb24>Samuels Tim. , BBC News, 24 February 2004.</ref> The ] gave the inquest a statement describing the LaRouche movement as a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections.<ref name=TownsendOct2004>Townsend, Mark. , ''The Observer'', 31 October 2004.</ref> The German police concluded Duggan had committed suicide after he ran for ten minutes down a busy road into oncoming traffic, and was struck by two cars then thrown into the path of a third. In November 2003 a British coroner ruled that he had suffered fatal head injuries during the collisions, but rejected a suicide verdict and said Duggan had been in a state of terror when he died.<ref name=SamuelsFeb24>Samuels Tim. , BBC News, 24 February 2004.</ref> The ] gave the inquest a statement describing the LaRouche movement as a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections.<ref name=TownsendOct2004>Townsend, Mark. , ''The Observer'', 31 October 2004.</ref>


Since then, the Duggan family and several members of the British and European parliaments have pressed the German police to re-open their investigation, arguing that the inquiry was inadequate, an allegation the Wiesbaden ] strongly denies.<ref name=Degen/> ''The Observer'' reported in March 2007 that the family had commissioned private forensic reports&mdash;based on photographs of the body, the cars, and the road&mdash;that questioned whether Duggan had actually been hit by any of the cars, and which suggested there were classic defence wounds on his forearms and hands.<ref name=TownsendMarch2007>Townsend, Mark and Doward, Jamie. , ''The Observer'', 25 March 2007.</ref> The family requested a judicial review in Germany of the decision not to re-open the police investigation, but the application was rejected by that country's ] on 4 February 2010.<ref name=Wuerzberg2010>Würzberg, Ulrike. , ''Usinger Anzeiger'', 24 February 2010; Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany) (2010). , 4 February 2010, accessed 10 March 2010; .</ref> Three weeks later Duggan's mother asked the High Court in London to order a second inquest, after being given leave to do so by the attorney general, who wrote that there was an unanswered question as to whether Duggan's injuries were, in fact, attributable to a car accident.<ref name=Scotland>Scotland, Patricia. , letter to Erica Duggan, Attorney General's Office, London, 17 January 2010; Scotland, Patricia. , Attorney General's Office, London, 17 January 2010. Also see: Since then, the Duggan family and several members of the British and European parliaments have pressed the German police to re-open their investigation, arguing that the inquiry was inadequate, an allegation the Wiesbaden ] strongly denies.<ref name=Degen/> ''The Observer'' reported in March 2007 that the family had commissioned private forensic reports&mdash;based on photographs of the body, the cars, and the road&mdash;that questioned whether Duggan had actually been hit by any of the cars, and which suggested there were classic defence wounds on his forearms and hands.<ref name=TownsendMarch2007>Townsend, Mark and Doward, Jamie. , ''The Observer'', 25 March 2007.</ref> The family requested a judicial review in Germany of the decision not to re-open the police investigation, but the application was rejected by that country's ] on 4 February 2010.<ref name=Wuerzberg2010>Würzberg, Ulrike. , ''Usinger Anzeiger'', 24 February 2010; Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany) (2010). , 4 February 2010, accessed 10 March 2010; .</ref> Three weeks later Duggan's mother asked the High Court in London to order a second inquest, after being given leave to do so by the attorney general, who wrote that there was an unanswered question as to whether Duggan's injuries were, in fact, attributable to a car accident.<ref name=Scotland>Scotland, Patricia. , letter to Erica Duggan, Attorney General's Office, London, 17 January 2010; Scotland, Patricia. , Attorney General's Office, London, 17 January 2010. Also see:

Revision as of 11:21, 11 March 2010

Death of Jeremiah Duggan
A young man with dark curly hair and bangs/a fringe hanging over his forehead, looks to his right. He is visible from the waist up. His right hand is raised to his face, and is shielding his eyes. He is wearing a dark jacket, a light- and dark-blue striped top under the jacket, and there is a dark strap over his left shoulder.
Date27 March 2003 (2003-03-27)
Timec. 6:00 am
LocationBerliner Straße, Bundesstraße 455, Wiesbaden, Germany
BurialHighgate Cemetery, London
10 April 2003
InquestHornsey, London
4 November 2003
CoronerRev. Dr. William Dolman
VerdictNarrative verdict: Duggan received fatal head injuries after being hit by a car, and had earlier been in a "state of terror."
LitigationSeveral requests in England and Germany for judicial review;
application for a second inquest currently before the High Court in London
WebsiteJustice for Jeremiah campaign (Duggan family)
Facts of the Duggan Case (LaRouche movement)

Jeremiah Joseph Duggan (10 November 1980 – 27 March 2003) was a British-Jewish student at the Sorbonne who died in disputed circumstances in Wiesbaden, Germany. His death became controversial because it occurred while he was attending a youth cadre school organized by the LaRouche movement, an international network led by the American political activist Lyndon LaRouche.

The German police concluded Duggan had committed suicide after he ran for ten minutes down a busy road into oncoming traffic, and was struck by two cars then thrown into the path of a third. In November 2003 a British coroner ruled that he had suffered fatal head injuries during the collisions, but rejected a suicide verdict and said Duggan had been in a state of terror when he died. The London Metropolitan Police gave the inquest a statement describing the LaRouche movement as a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections.

Since then, the Duggan family and several members of the British and European parliaments have pressed the German police to re-open their investigation, arguing that the inquiry was inadequate, an allegation the Wiesbaden public prosecutor strongly denies. The Observer reported in March 2007 that the family had commissioned private forensic reports—based on photographs of the body, the cars, and the road—that questioned whether Duggan had actually been hit by any of the cars, and which suggested there were classic defence wounds on his forearms and hands. The family requested a judicial review in Germany of the decision not to re-open the police investigation, but the application was rejected by that country's Federal Constitutional Court on 4 February 2010. Three weeks later Duggan's mother asked the High Court in London to order a second inquest, after being given leave to do so by the attorney general, who wrote that there was an unanswered question as to whether Duggan's injuries were, in fact, attributable to a car accident.

The LaRouche movement has said the controversy has been stirred up by LaRouche's political opponents—including former British prime minister Tony Blair and former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney—over his criticism of the 2003 Iraq war and the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, and that Duggan's death is being used by anti-cult activists to discredit the movement. The Wiesbaden prosecutor, Dr Dieter Arlet, said in 2004 there was no doubt the death was a suicide—that as a consequence of his own behaviour and with no-one else involved, Duggan had thrown himself in front of several cars and died on the third attempt. A spokesman for the prosecutor suggested in April 2007 that the Duggans simply cannot accept that their son committed suicide.

Background

Duggan family

Duggan was born in north London to Hugo, who was raised in Skerries, Dublin, and Erica, a retired schoolteacher originally from South Africa. Erica's father was a German Jew who fled the country during The Holocaust; Erica herself left South Africa for England because of apartheid. There were three children: two girls, followed by Duggan. The family was part of the Progressive Judaism movement, and the children were raised in the Jewish tradition, but Hugo said Duggan was also steeped in the Irish tradition he had from his father's side. Hugo and Erica divorced when Duggan was seven, but they all remained close.

Duggan attended Fitzjohn's Infant School in Hampstead, then Quainton School for Boys, and when he was 11 won a scholarship to Christ's Hospital, a private boarding school in Horsham, Sussex. After his A-levels, he spent time in India, then went to Israel to train as a youth leader, and in September 2001 moved to Paris to study English at the Sorbonne and French at the British Institute. His mother said his interests lay in literature, the arts, and the theatre, though since 9/11 he had become increasingly interested in politics, and just before his death told his parents he felt it was important to protest against the Iraq war. Since his death, Erica has sold her home to pay for lawyers, forensic experts, and private detectives.

LaRouche movement

An older man is looking to his right, visible from the shoulders up. He has great hair and is balding at the front. He is wearing metal-rimmed glasses, a dark-blue jacket, a white shirt underneath, and a watch on his left wrist. His hands are clasped in front of him, and he is leaning forward slightly.
Lyndon LaRouche, 2006

Lyndon LaRouche and his German wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, run a global political movement from their bases in Leesburg, Virginia, and Wiesbaden, Germany. It consists of a network of publications, political action committees, and a youth cadre, which promote the view that LaRouche, who has stood as an American presidential candidate eight times, is a figure of international political importance, brilliant and widely misunderstood. He was jailed for 15 years in 1989 for conspiracy to commit fraud, a prosecution he said was politically motivated, and was released on parole in January 1994.

The movement has been associated in the mainstream media with violence against its opponents, fraudulent use of donations, anti-Semitism, and the promotion of conspiracy theories. The movement's members insist the allegations are misrepresentations, and LaRouche himself has strongly denied the charge of anti-Semitism. According to The Sunday Times, the movement is also known for its aggressive recruiting techniques, known as "ego-stripping" or "psycho sessions," in which potential recruits are isolated from their families, encouraged to give up their studies, and subjected to intense verbal pressure before being asked to accept the LaRouche worldview.

A woman is looking to her left. She seems to be seated. She has long brown hair and is wearing earphones. She is wearing a dark grey top, a green, black, and orange scarf around her neck, and a watch on her left wrist with a grey watchstrap.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, 2005

LaRouche is particularly critical of Britain. He said in 1980 that the British are more evil than Hitler, and that British intelligence is involved in global brainwashing and drug dealing, with the Queen aware of the latter. In 1999 a LaRouche publication said Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) was threatening to assassinate him, probably with backing from the royal household. In Germany, the movement is represented by the Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität, known as BüSo, and the Schiller Institute, the latter founded by Zepp-LaRouche in 1984. It was the Schiller Institute that organized the conference Duggan attended, while the youth cadre school that followed it was held by the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement. The Berliner Zeitung wrote in 2007 that the Schiller Institute had a following of about 300 in Germany at that time, and was one of the cults recruiting aggressively in German streets.

Duggan's involvement with the movement

Nouvelle Solidarité

A map of western Europe showing London, Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg, and Wiesbaden. Above Wiesbaden is a red arrow.
Duggan and eight LaRouche members drove from Paris to the conference in Bad Schwalbach, just outside Wiesbaden

Duggan's first contact with the LaRouche movement was in Paris in early 2003 when he bought what looked like an anti-war newspaper in the street outside the Invalides station on the Paris Metro. The man who sold him the paper was Benoit Chalifoux, the editor of Nouvelle Solidarité, the LaRouche movement's French-language newspaper. According to The Sunday Times, Chalifoux was also one of the LaRouche movement's recruiters, known as "organizers." Chalifoux befriended him and started teaching him about international politics, according to Duggan's telephone calls to his parents, then invited him to attend what Duggan described as an anti-war conference in Germany, a three-day Schiller Institute conference in Bad Schwalbach, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Wiesbaden. Duggan was concerned about the prospect of war in Iraq, and told his mother he felt very strongly about it, and wanted to go. He asked her to look up LaRouche on the Web, but she misspelled it "Laroche," and found nothing to cause concern.

Wiesbaden conference

Duggan and Chalifoux travelled to Wiesbaden together on 21 March with eight other LaRouche members in a convoy of cars. Once there, Duggan was given a place to sleep with two other activists, Sébastien Drochon and another named as Jean-Adrien, in an apartment belonging to Schiller Institute managers, Rainer and Ursula Apel, who had been involved with the movement for 30 years.

LaRouche himself was the conference's keynote speaker. It was the eighth day of the war in Iraq, and The Washington Post reports that the mood of the conference was apocalyptic. LaRouche told the audience that George W. Bush was an unreformed drunk, that Woodrow Wilson had founded the Ku Klux Klan from the White House, that John F. Kennedy was killed by an internal American operation called the "Special Warfare Section," that the U.S. was using the war in Iraq to ignite global warfare, and that the Bush administration was "totally committed to worldwide fascist imperialism," with North Korea, China, and Iran as targets. He said the plot to launch a new world war was being influenced by people who "like Hitler, admire Nietzsche, but being Jewish ... couldn't qualify for Nazi Party leadership, even though their fascism was absolutely pure! As extreme as Hitler! They sent them to the United States." The people behind the plot were the "independent central-banking-system crowd, the slime-mold," he said, the same people who had brought Hitler to power in the 1930s.

Youth cadre school

After the conference, Duggan decided to stay on with about 50 others for a LaRouche youth cadre school at a youth hostel in Wiesbaden. Benoit Chalifoux, the recruiter who had accompanied him to Germany, returned to Paris. According to The Sunday Times, Chalifoux told one other member about his new contact with Duggan, and said he was amused to discover Duggan was a Jew who was reportedly embarrassed by his faith; the newspaper writes that recruiters took note of weaknesses in potential recruits. One other recruiter from Paris, Jean-Gabriel Maheo, attended the youth cadre school. The Sunday Times writes of Maheo that he was known for his ability to draw people to LaRouche.

According to The Washington Post, Duggan stood out because he was British and Jewish, and perhaps also because he told the others that he had gone to the Tavistock Clinic as a child for a family counselling session when his parents were divorcing. The LaRouche movement believes the related Tavistock Institute is a brainwashing centre for British intelligence; according to Duggan's conference notes at least one speaker there referred to it in those terms. In an article about Duggan's death in 2004, LaRouche's security director, Jeffrey Steinberg, referred to Duggan's counselling there, and said the Tavistock had long been associated with radical experimentation in individual and mass psychological manipulation. Frank Nordhausen writes in the Berliner Zeitung that Duggan may have had the misfortune to represent a combination LaRouche often warned his security teams about—British, Jewish, and linked to an institute LaRouche referred to as "psychos."

According to the Post, LaRouche has been concerned since the 1970s that his members might be brainwashed by intelligence agencies to harm him. The New York Times obtained a tape recording in 1973 of the so-called de-programming of a 26-year-old British activist, Christopher White, who LaRouche believed had been programmed to kill him. White is heard complaining that he has been deprived of food, sleep, and cigarettes. There are sounds of weeping and vomiting on the tape, and someone says "raise the voltage," though LaRouche, who was present during at least one of the sessions, said later this referred to the bright lights being used during the questioning, not an electric shock. White complains about a terrible pain in his arm, and LaRouche can be heard saying, "That's not real. That's in the program." Not long after this, another recruit, Alice Weitzman, threw a note pleading for help out of her apartment window in New York, after several LaRouche members arrived there claiming she had been brainwashed to kill LaRouche; a passer-by alerted the police and they released her. The Post writes that brainwashing hysteria spread throughout the movement; one former member who spoke to the Post said people could be seen at LaRouche meetings writhing on the floor, saying they needed de-programming. In 2004, another former member, Aglaja Beyes-Corleis, who left the movement in the early 1990s after being involved with it for 16 years, told the BBC people were drawn into the organization without really wanting to be, and that conferences involved what the BBC said was immense psychological duress. She said she herself had "freaked out" during them, as she put it, as had other members.

The Berliner Zeitung writes that Duggan's being a Jew would also have drawn attention to him. Aglaja Beyes-Corleis said Jewish members were sometimes placed under particular pressure at meetings. An internal memo from the London Metropolitan Police submitted as evidence at his inquest said the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Youth Movement blamed the Jewish people for the Iraq war and all the other problems in the world; the memo said that "Jeremiah's lecture notes and bulletins showed the anti-Semitic nature of ideology." Duggan's mother said Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, the Schiller Institute's scientific adviser, told her after his death that when Duggan heard the Jews being blamed for the Iraq war during a seminar at the cadre school, he had stood up and said, "But I'm a Jew!" One participant said the others "really put Jeremiah through the wringer for that."

Incident

Duggan's telephone calls

A map of central Wiesbaden. A red arrow in the top left corner. A main road called the B 54 leads into the B 455. On this road there is a number 2. In the bottom right of the map there is a number 3.
Duggan is reported to have run five kilometres (3.1 miles) in 35–45 minutes.
1. He left the apartment he was staying in at 5:15–5:25 am.
2. He was reported to have collided with the first car on the Berliner Straße at c. 6:00 am.
3. The location of the LaRouche offices

Duggan had planned to meet his French girlfriend, Maya, in Paris on Tuesday night, 25 March, two days before his death, but he telephoned her that day to say he had no money for the fare home, and was unable to get a ride until Sunday. He told her very serious things were happening, and that he would explain when he returned. On 26 March, he went with some LaRouche movement members to Frankfurt to hand out LaRouche literature in the streets. Later they went to the Städel museum to see the Rembrandt collection. When one member asked him what he thought of it, Duggan started sobbing. The woman asked him to step outside with her for some air. He kept repeating that he didn't trust LaRouche. She said he was free to leave, and he hugged her and seemed reassured.

Rainer Apel, the Schiller Institute manager whose apartment Duggan was staying in, told The Sunday Times that Duggan and Sébastien Drochon—who was sleeping in the same apartment and later went to work for the LaRouche group Solidarité et Progrès in France—got back to the house around midnight; they had no key so Apel remembers having to open the door for them. Drochon told police Duggan was restless, switching the lights off obsessively. He talked about how he was afraid of going bald, was unable to trust LaRouche, and felt trapped.

At around 4:30 am—by now Thursday, 27 March—Duggan borrowed Drochon's cell phone to call Maya again. Maya said he sounded agitated. He told her he no longer knew what reality was, what was true and what was lies. He spoke of experiments involving computers and magnetic waves. Maya asked him to take a train straightaway to Paris. She told the BBC:

The first thing he said was that he was under too much pressure. He was talking very quietly. He said that they were doing experiments on humans with computers. The way he spoke was very agitated. He couldn't string a sentence together properly. I asked him who was doing these experiments, and he said the government. He said that they were causing lots of pains to their arms and legs. I tried to find out where he was, but he wouldn't say.

According to Drochon, after the call to Maya Duggan telephoned his mother, then ran out of the house at 5:15 am. It is not clear that the calls to Erica were made from the same cell phone or directly after the call to Maya. Erica told the BBC the first call came in at 4:24 am local time (5:24 am in Germany). She had been unable to sleep and was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea.

He said, "Mum, I'm in ... big trouble ... You know this Nouvelle Solidarité? .." He said, "I can't do this" ... I want out." And at that point the phone was cut. And then it rang back again almost immediately. ... And then the first thing that he said that time was, "Mum, I'm frightened." I realized he was in such danger that I said to him, "I love you." And then he said, "I want to see you now. ... Now was important. I said, "well, where are you, Jerry?" And he said, "Wiesbaden." And I said, "How do you spell it?" And he said, "W I E S." And then the phone was cut.

Drochon said that after the calls Duggan asked him, "why did you choose me?" and said he wanted to go out for cigarettes. Drochon offered to go with him. At the bottom of the stairs, Drochon pressed the doorbell; he said this happened accidentally as he was looking for the light switch. Duggan appeared to panic at the noise and ran off, according to Drochon. Drochon said he ran after him but was unable to catch up. He told a Schiller Institute manager, Ortrun Cramer, that Duggan had left the house.

A road with two lanes in each direction. In the middle a thick white line. On the left side of the road there are two cars in the distance, one red, one blue; and on the left, a white bundle is lying. Around the white bundle there are white marks on the ground. To the left of the image there is a barrier, and beyond it some greenery. There are buildings in the distance.
Duggan's body on the Berliner Straße

Death

Forty-five minutes later, at about 6:00 am, the driver of a BMW said he saw Duggan run onto the Berliner Straße, or Bundesstraße 455 (B-455), a dual carriageway in the Wiesbaden suburb of Erbenheim. The spot where he was found in the road, near the LaRouche headquarters, was around five kilometres (3.1 miles) from the apartment he had been staying in. The driver clipped him with his wing mirror and knocked him over, but Duggan got up and kept on running for another ten minutes away from the centre of town, facing the incoming traffic, before he was hit again. The driver of a second car, a red Peugeot, said Duggan leapt in front of the car, his arms raised and his mouth open. The driver said the car hit him, shattering the windshield and a passenger door window, and throwing him into the path of a third car, a blue Golf, which ran over him.

Immediate reaction

Within minutes of Duggan's second call, his mother telephoned 999, the British emergency services number, and was advised to call her local police station in Colindale, Barnet. She told police there that she believed her son was in danger, and they transferred her to the main office of the London Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, but when she explained he had become mixed up with Nouvelle Solidarité they had no idea what she meant. She telephoned his girlfriend, Maya, who told her Drochon, Duggan's roommate, had called to ask whether Maya had heard from him, because Duggan had left the apartment and had not returned; this call was at 7:40 am, according to the inquest.

Maya gave Erica Drochon's cell phone number. Erica said Drochon hung up when she first called him, but when she called a second time he passed her to the Schiller Institute manager, Ortrun Cramer. Erica said there was a lot of shouting in the background, which stopped when Cramer said, "Die Mutter" ("the mother"). According to The Independent, Cramer told Erica that the LaRouche organization was a news agency, and said, "We cannot take responsibility for the actions of individuals. We think your son has psychological problems." Cramer said she would call the local hospitals to see whether Duggan had been admitted. Telephone records show that call ended at 11:07 German time, according to The Daily Telegraph. About three minutes later, the Telegraph writes, Cramer, Drochon, and another activist presented themselves at the Wiesbaden police station with Duggan's passport, his bag, and his rucksack, though another report says that Cramer first contacted them by telephone. Cramer told The Independent in 2004: "I believed he had psychological problems, based on the conversations he had with people. I don't know what happened on the night he died, but the Schiller Institute played no part in his death." His parents were told by British police at 3:45 that afternoon that Duggan was dead, and that it was believed he had committed suicide.

One LaRouche member, Giselle, said that members of the cadre school were asked to assemble in the local LaRouche office the next day. The Sunday Times writes that Helga Zepp-LaRouche was present. The first person to speak to the gathering was Jean-Gabriel Maheo, a LaRouche recruiter from Paris, who told the meeting that Duggan had been in the Tavistock, apparently giving the impression that he had been there recently. Zepp-LaRouche then told the meeting Duggan could have been an agent sent from London to harm LaRouche, according to The Sunday Times.

Inquiries

German police

The police in Wiesbaden concluded within three hours that it was a suicide, according to the Berliner Zeitung. Jurgen Burg, an accident examiner, took 79 photographs of the body, the scene and the cars, though the cars were moved before he arrived to photograph them. The drivers were reportedly allowed to leave the scene before the investigating officer arrived. There was no postmortem examination, no signed statements from witnesses, and the police destroyed Duggan's clothes. Evidence was taken from witnesses, but was recorded only as brief and allegedly contradictory notes, according to The Daily Telegraph, which obtained a copy of the police report. Written by an Officer Schächer, it concluded there was no doubt Duggan had run onto the road with the intention of committing suicide, and no suggestion that another party was involved. The police said LaRouche officials told them Duggan had suffered from suicidal impulses, and that he had been a mental patient at the Tavistock Institute.

British postmortem and inquest

Duggan's body was flown back to England on 31 March, where a non-forensic postmortem examination was conducted on 4 April by Dr David Shove, a consultant histopathologist at Barnet General Hospital. Shove found serious head injuries, bruising on the backs of the arms and hands—which The Independent and a second pathologist later called "defence wounds"—and blood in the lungs and stomach. He concluded that Duggan had died of massive head injuries. He did not give evidence at the inquest, and according to Erica told her much later that he was not told Duggan had been in a collision with a car; he reportedly told her that he did not believe Duggan had been involved in such a collision, but he declined to sign a statement to that effect. Blood samples showed no trace of drugs or alcohol.

The inquest was held on 6 and 7 November 2003. The court heard from a psychiatrist, Elizabeth Tylden, that Duggan had no history of mental illness. Tylden testified that a severe stress reaction can be caused by a rapid change in a person's belief system. She wrote in a report for the court: " state was similar to those I have had described to me by others I have seen previously. He had become confused, failed to sleep for a whole night and became acutely alarmed by the sound of a front door bell and covered five kilometres along a motorway in about 35 minutes. At the end of this experience he would have been physiologically and psychologically completely confused and disorientated. Had he not been fatally injured by the accident and instead gone to hospital it might have been possible to discover whether he had developed an acute psychosis. The three other cult members I have seen who survived similar situations, two on motorways and one on a railway line, were not found to be psychotic when subsequently admitted to hospital."

The court also heard that an internal London Metropolitan Police report described the movement as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections." Detective Inspector Jane Cowell told the court, "It does appear to be quite a sinister organization ... It did appear quite frightening really, especially for impressionable young people." The coroner, Dr. William Dolman, ruled that Duggan had been "sucked into" an extreme political organization—he added that he was using the term "sucked into" advisedly—and had received fatal head injuries when he ran into the road and was hit by two cars. He added: "What other fact do we know that I must add? I really must add that he had earlier been in a state of terror. It is a word not commonly used in a Coroner's court but no other word would reflect his state of mind at the time."

Private forensic reviews

A street scene. On the right, an old building with around three floors. On the centre-right, a 13th-century clock tower, the time showing just before 12:14. To the left of the tower in the background, there is a large ferris wheel, and to the left of that in the foreground a modern building around five floors high. In front of the buildings, there are black railings, traffic lights, people crossing the road, and several cars and a black car with a yellow taxi sign on the front
The Duggans presented several private forensic reports to a meeting of British MPs and journalists at Portcullis House (left) in March 2007.

The family commissioned five private forensic reports in 2005 and 2007, which they presented on 27 March 2007 to a meeting of British MPs and journalists in Portcullis House, London. Four of the reports were reviews of 79 photographs taken in Germany by Jurgen Burg, the German accident examiner, and one was a review by a forensic pathologist of the original pathologist's examination. The family also had brown spots analysed that were found on Duggan's passport —the passport was not with him when he died—and it was found to have his blood on it, and that of one other unidentified person, according to the Berliner Zeitung.

Paul Canning, a forensic photographer formerly with the Metropolitan police, produced two reports, a 59-page report dated 22 December 2005 that examined the photographs, and a second dated 24 December 2006, an addendum arising from a statement Jurgen Burg made to Erica, namely that the cars involved in the collision had been moved before Burg took the photographs and before he arrived on the scene, which damaged the integrity of the scene, in Canning's view. Canning wrote:

I do not believe that the damage to either vehicle was caused by the impact of Jerry's body. There are no traces of skin, hair, blood or clothing on either vehicle, nor is there any blood, tissue or clothing debris on the road, except for blood in the immediate vicinity of the body, nor are there any tyre marks or signs on either Jerry or on the cars to indicate that either vehicle came into contact with the body. ... I have never photographed a vehicle that has hit a person at speed and caused their death without there being some obvious signs that both body and vehicle have made contact—for example, blood, tissue, hair or clothing traces. Furthermore, I have never seen or photographed a pointed, sharp dent, such as the one on the Peugeot front right-hand door, that has been caused by an impact with a person. In my opinion, this dent is more likely to have been caused by contact from a heavy instrument, or even another vehicle.

A second review of the photographs was conducted at the family's request by Allan John Bayle, also a forensic scene examiner formerly with the Metropolitan police. In his view, there was no sign of the Golf having hit Duggan, and the windscreen of the Peugeot had been smashed by an instrument, possibly a crowbar. He wrote that there appeared to be no tyre marks on Duggan or his clothing. Another review by Terence Merston, a former scenes-of-crime examiner for the Metropolitan police, said the lack of physical evidence of contact between Duggan and the cars made the death suspicious, in his view. A fourth review of the photographs was conducted by Manfred Tuve, a German forensic scientist, and suggested that Duggan's head injuries did not match the damage to the vehicles.

In a report dated 24 February 2007, Dr Ivaca Milosavljevic, head of forensic medicine at the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, gave his view of the original examination of the body by Dr. Shove. He wrote that Shove had found an abundant quantity of fresh blood in the lungs, and bruises on the surface of the lungs. In Milosavljevic's view, this suggested that Duggan's death was not instantaneous. He also wrote that there were defence wounds on Duggan's forearms and hands that may have been inflicted by fists, or feet with shoes on.

Calls for a second inquest

A woman looking at the camera, from the shoulders up. She has short dark hair, is smiling, and is wearing a black jacket and black top. She is wearing a single string of pearls, a white brooch, white earrings, and a gold chain.
Patricia Scotland, England's attorney general, gave leave to apply for a new inquest.

In light of the forensic reviews, Erica asked the attorney general in March 2007 for permission to apply to the High Court to order a second inquest, and in May 96 British MPs signed an early day motion requesting the same. In England the attorney general can only request that the High Court open a fresh inquest; she has no power to quash the finding of the first inquest herself. In February 2008, Attorney General Baroness Scotland declined the application, saying it had no reasonable prospect of success, a response she apologized for in 2010. Erica requested judicial review of that decision, which was granted by the High Court in London in November 2008, the court ruling that the case had unusual features.

In January 2010, Scotland granted Erica leave to apply to the High Court to order a second inquest. Scotland wrote that there remained unanswered questions as to whether Duggan's injuries were attributable to a car accident, and apologized that the application had not been handled correctly the first time. Erica submitted her new application on 26 February 2010.

Parallel legal challenges in Germany saw the Duggans appeal the decision to close the investigation, rejected by the Oberlandesgericht in Frankfurt in July 2006. In November 2006, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish human rights organization, asked Brigitte Zypries, the German Justice Minister, to re-open it; the Centre's Shimon Samuels wrote that the organization had received messages of concern about the Schiller Institute from the parents of recruits. Erica's appeal against the decision of the Oberlandesgericht was rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany on 4 February 2010.

Response

LaRouche movement

LaRouche's director of security, Jeffrey Steinberg, wrote in June 2004 that Duggan had told the other recruits he had recently been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and on the Sunday before his death had tried to find a pharmacy where he could obtain prescription drugs. He said that, after Duggan's death, his mother met with representatives of the Schiller Institute in what Steinberg called a sympathetic meeting, and that her attitude changed only after British minister Elizabeth Symons intervened on behalf of the British Foreign Office.

In November 2006, LaRouche himself issued a statement saying the allegations were a hoax stemming from a campaign orchestrated by Dick Cheney, then the Vice-President of the United States, and Cheney's wife. In March 2007, he said the campaign was led by the "British Fabian friends of Dick Cheney and Al Gore," and was aimed at discrediting him over his opposition to the Iraq war and his criticism of the man-made global warming hypothesis. In September 2007, the LaRouche Political Action Committee published a letter from the London Metropolitan Police (MPS), dated 14 July 2003, that it said was obtained under the British Freedom of Information Act, in which an MPS officer wrote that he had been assured the case had been fully investigated in Germany. A statement on the website of the Schiller Institute reads: "The Schiller Institute has always maintained that it had no involvement whatsoever in Jeremiah's death, and has expressed its sympathy to the Duggan family."

German public prosecutor

In February 2004, Dieter Arlett, the Wiesbaden public prosecutor, told Tim Samuels of the BBC that he can only investigate under German law if there is concrete evidence of third-party involvement, and that there is no evidence of that. Arlett said that, so far as he knew, the Schiller Institute had only been mentioned in connection with the death because Duggan had attended an event of theirs, but no more than this is known. He said the prosecutor's office was 100 percent certain it was suicide, in the sense that Duggan's death was a consequence of his own behaviour, with no one else involved. In April 2007, Hartmut Ferse of the public prosecutor's office told the Wiesbadener Kurier that the investigation had been very thorough, and showed the reporter ten thick folders of documents related to the case, telling him that no other apparent suicide had ever caused so much work for his office. He suggested the murder theory had developed because Duggan's mother cannot accept that her son committed suicide–the newspaper referred to the theories as "myths" ("Legende"), adding that they keep gaining adherents but no evidence. In an interview in March 2009, Ferse's deputy, Klaus Schulte, stressed again that there was no evidence linking the Schiller Institute to Duggan's death.

Notes

  1. ^ Townsend, Mark. "The student, the shadowy cult and a mother's fight for justice", The Observer, 31 October 2004.
  2. ^ Samuels Tim. Investigation into British student death stalled, BBC News, 24 February 2004.
  3. ^ Degen, Wolfgang, "Nur die Legende hat ein langes Leben", Wiesbadener Kurier, 19 April 2007 (German); Google translation.
  4. Townsend, Mark and Doward, Jamie. "New evidence shows 'suicide' student was beaten to death", The Observer, 25 March 2007.
  5. ^ Würzberg, Ulrike. Gericht zieht Schlussstrich: Keine neuen Ermittlungen im Fall Jeremiah Duggan, Usinger Anzeiger, 24 February 2010; Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany) (2010). Decision, 4 February 2010, accessed 10 March 2010; Google translation.
  6. ^ Scotland, Patricia. Section 13 application, letter to Erica Duggan, Attorney General's Office, London, 17 January 2010; Scotland, Patricia. Coroners Act 1988, Re: Jeremiah Joseph Duggan, Attorney General's Office, London, 17 January 2010. Also see:
  7. See Other responses from the LaRouche movement, 2004–2010:
  8. Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, 24 October 2004, p. 1 for the father's flight from the Holocaust; and for Erica and South Africa, see Erica Duggan's profile, Blogger, accessed 6 March 2010.
  9. His life, The Justice for Jeremiah Campaign; O'Donovan, Deirdre. Why did our happy, smiling son take his own life 5 days after joining ..., Sunday Mirror, 8 August 2004.
  10. His life, The Justice for Jeremiah Campaign.
  11. Witt, April. No Joke, The Washington Post, 24 October 2004, p. 2. For his time in India and Israel, see Kirby, Terry. "The Lost Boy", The Independent, 28 August 2003.
  12. Taylor, Jerome. Mystery of dead Briton and the right-wing cult The Independent 27 February 2010.
  13. Debtor's Prison: Lyndon LaRouche, Time magazine, 6 February 1989; LaRouche Is Released And Plans Campaign, The New York Times, January 27, 1994.
  14. See, for example;
  15. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. "On The Press Hoax Against the Pope: Britain's Bernard Lewis & His Crimes", Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee, 17 September 2006.
  16. ^ Smith, David James. Motorway madness, The Sunday Times, 18 July 2004.
  17. Samuels, Tim. Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche, BBC News, 12 February 2004; also see an extended news item presented by Tim Samuels on BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004, available on YouTube.
    • For the allegations about the Queen, see Samuels from 0:58 mins.
    • On Newsnight, 12 February 2004, LaRouche is shown telling a Newsnight interviewer in 1980: "Of course she's pushing drugs. That is, in the sense of a responsibility, the head of a gang that is pushing drugs, she knows it's happening and she isn't stopping it": available on YouTube, part 1, at 3:49 minutes.
    • For the British being more evil than Hitler, see Samuels from 1:09 mins.
    • For more details, see Kirby, Terry. The cult and the candidate, The Independent, 21 July 2004.
  18. Burdman, Mark. "British Magazine Publishes Death Threat vs. LaRouche", Executive Intelligence Review, 13 August 1999. The article said: "On Aug. 2, his campaign vehicle, LaRouche's Committee for a New Bretton Woods, was quick to respond, with a statement issued in Washington by Debra Hanania-Freeman, national spokeswoman for LaRouche. Freeman said: "After consulting with security experts familiar with the modus operandi of British intelligence networks, we are treating the piece as a cover for an MI6 order, probably with direct backing from someone in the royal household, to assassinate Lyndon LaRouche.... "
  19. ^ Nordhausen, Frank. Ermittlungen einer Mutter, Berliner Zeitung, 4 April 2007; Google translation.
  20. Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche," BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004, available on YouTube, part 1, from 2:18 mins.
  21. Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, 24 October 2004, p. 2.
  22. ^ Foggo, Daniel. German police probe into British student's death was 'inadequate', The Daily Telegraph, 9 November 2003.
  23. Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, 24 October 2004, p. 4.
  24. ^ Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, 24 October 2004, p. 5.
  25. Steinberg, Jeffrey. "The Bizarre Case of Baroness Symons", Executive Intelligence Review, 25 June 2004.
  26. ^ Witt, April. No Joke, The Washington Post, 24 October 2004, p. 3.
  27. Samuels, Tim. Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche, BBC News, 12 February 2004, at 00:42 mins for Beyes-Corleis saying people were drawn into it without really wanting to be, and from 3:00 mins for her 16 years with the Institute, and her description of the behaviour at conferences.
  28. Samuels, Tim. Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche, BBC News, 12 February 2004, at 3:33 mins.
  29. Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche," BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004; available on YouTube, part 3, at 2:23 mins.
  30. ^ Kirby, Terry. "The Lost Boy", The Independent, 28 August 2003.
  31. Midgley, Carol. "Student died in terror of cult", The Times, 7 November 2003. p. 3
  32. According to Greenwichmeantime.com, citing the British Department of Trade and Industry: "For 2003-2007 inclusive, the summer-time periods begin and end respectively on the following dates at 1.00am Greenwich Mean Time ... In 2003: the Sundays of 30 March and 26 October ..." As of March 11, 2002, British and European time changes were synchronized (see Greenwichmeantime.com, accessed 4 November 2009). This means that, on 27 March 2003, Britain was on GMT, and France and Germany were on Central European Standard Time, GMT+1.
  33. Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche," BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004; available on YouTube: interview with Maya begins 5:10 mins in part 1, and continues from 00:00 mins in part 2.
  34. Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche," BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004; available on YouTube, part 2, from 02:08 mins.
  35. Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche," BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004; available on YouTube, part 2, from 2:00 mins.
  36. Nordhausen, Frank. Ermittlungen einer Mutter, Berliner Zeitung, 4 April 2007, p. 3; Google translation; Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, 24 October 2004, p. 5. For the ten minute gap between being hit by the first and second cars, see Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche," BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004; available on YouTube, part 2, from 01:38 mins.
  37. ^ Coroner's Court transcript, The Justice for Jeremiah Campaign.
  38. Duggan, Erica. The night of Jerry's death, The Justice for Jeremiah Campaign, accessed 6 March 2010.
  39. Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General, 2008, para 12ff.
  40. Cult death student's family in court fight for new inquest, Daily Mail, 2 November 2008.
  41. Taylor, Jerome (2010). Mystery of dead Briton and the right-wing cult The Independent 27 February 2010; Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General, 2008, para 21.
  42. For the postmortem date and its description as "non-forensic," see Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General, 2008, para 7; see para 22 for the claim that Shove later told Erica Duggan that he did not believe Duggan had been in a collision with a car. For the same material, see Nordhausen, Frank. Ermittlungen einer Mutter, Berliner Zeitung, 4 April 2007; Google translation.
    • For Shove's position as a histopathologist at Barnet, see Kelsey, Tim. Mortuary man tells of work on bodies, The Independent, 4 October 1993. For a paper on the differences between the work of forensic pathologists and histopathologists, see Rutty, Guy N. Who audits the autopsy?, Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology, Volume 2, Number 2, June 2006.
  43. Tylden, Elizabeth. Extract from Tylden's report to Duggan's inquest, Coroner's Court, Hornsey, London, 6 November 2003, hosted on justiceforjeremiah.com in 2005.
  44. Townsend, Mark. "The student, the shadowy cult and a mother's fight for justice", The Observer, 31 October 2004.
  45. Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General, 2008, CO4197/2008, para 10; Samuels, Tim. Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche, BBC News, 12 February 2004, 2:50 mins (note that the BBC and Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General 2008 differ slightly in their quoting of the coroner: this article uses the quote from the latter); Coroner's Court transcript, The Justice for Jeremiah Campaign, accessed 7 October 2009.
  46. Nugent, Helen. "Call for new inquest on Jewish student linked to far-right 'cult'", The Times, 28 March 2007; Townsend, Mark and Doward, Jamie. "New evidence shows 'suicide' student was beaten to death", The Observer, 25 March 2007; Paul, Jonny. UK Parliament discusses death of Jewish student in Germany, The Jerusalem Post, undated; Student beaten to death, BBC News, 27 March 2007.
  47. Nordhausen, Frank. Ermittlungen einer Mutter, Berliner Zeitung, 4 April 2007: "Jeremiahs Reisepass war mit braunen Flecken besprenkelt. Die Mutter ließ die Flecken von einem Forensiker analysieren—und der fand Blut. Ein Vergleich der DNA mit übrig gebliebenen Blutproben von Jeremiah ergab: Das Blut auf den Asservaten stammte von ihm—und von einer weiteren Person. Nur, von wem?" See Google translation.
  48. Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General, 2008, skeleton argument on behalf of the claimant, High Court of Justice, CO4197/2008, para 12ff.
  49. Paul, Jonny. UK Parliament discusses death of Jewish student in Germany, The Jerusalem Post, undated; Townsend, Mark. Cult riddle of student's death, The Guardian, 17 September 2006.
  50. Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General, 2008, paras 16, 17 for Bayle; para 18 for Merston; para 18 for Tuve; para 48 (ii) for Bayle's teaching experience at Hendon; para 48 (iii) for Merston's background.
  51. Erica Duggan v H.M. Attorney General, 2008, para 21.
  52. ^ Nugent, Helen. "Call for new inquest on Jewish student linked to far-right 'cult'", The Times, 28 March 2007.
  53. Muir, Hugh. "MPs want inquiry on Jewish man's death in Germany to be reopened", The Guardian, 24 May 2007; Ellman, Louise. Text of the early day motion, House of Commons.
  54. Hirsch, Afua. Family of student killed in Germany to challenge refusal for new inquest, The Guardian, 6 November 2008; Hirsch, Afua. Challenge to attorney's powers by family of student killed in Germany, The Guardian, 10 November 2008.
  55. "Wiesenthal Centre Appeals to German Justice Minister", Simon Weisenthal Center, 10 November 2006, accessed 4 November 2009.
  56. ^ Steinberg, Jeffrey. "The Bizarre Case of Baroness Symons", Executive Intelligence Review, 25 June 2004.
  57. LaRouche, Lyndon H. "Cheney Behind Press Campaign, Duggan Hoax Rewarmed Again", Lyndon LaRouche political action committee, November 8, 2006.
  58. "London 'Friends of Dick Cheney and Al Gore' Behind New Slander of LaRouche", Lyndon LaRouche political action committee, 25 March 2007.
  59. The Jeremiah Duggan Case, The Facts, LaRouche Political Action Committee; see British police letter here (pdf).
  60. The Facts in the Jeremiah Duggan Case, Schiller Institute, September 2007.
  61. Samuels Tim. Investigation into British student death stalled, BBC News, 24 February 2004; Samuels, Tim. Jeremiah Duggan's death and Lyndon LaRouche, BBC News, 12 February 2004, from 1:48 mins; also on BBC Newsnight, 12 February 2004, available on YouTube, part 3, 4:16 mins.
  62. Cacace, Helen. Remembering Jeremiah Duggan, Channel 4 News, 27 March 2009, from 4:00 mins.

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