Jump to content

Death of Jeremiah Duggan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 81.106.178.125 (talk) at 13:38, 3 July 2007. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Jeremiah Duggan

Jeremiah 'Jerry' Duggan (November 10, 1980 – March 27, 2003), a British student at the University of Paris, died in disputed circumstances near Wiesbaden, Germany. His death became controversial because it occurred while he was attending a youth cadre school organized by the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Youth Movement, part of an international organization led by perennial American presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche and his wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

The German police ruled that Duggan's death was a suicide, based on evidence that he was struck by two vehicles while running down a busy road.[1] A British inquest rejected a suicide verdict after hearing the Schiller Institute described by the London Metropolitan Police as a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."[2] Since that time, a number of theories regarding Duggan's death have been advanced by his family and rejected by the German authorities and the LaRouche movement.

Background

Early life and education

Duggan was born in London, the son of Hugo, who is Irish, and Erica, who is Jewish. He attended Christ's Hospital School in Horsham, Sussex. After leaving school, he spent some time in Israel. In 2001, he moved to Paris to study French at the British Institute, part of the University of London, and subsequently began a degree in English literature at the University of Paris (Sorbonne). There is a website for Jeremiah it is www.justiceforjeremiah.com

The LaRouche movement

Main articles: LaRouche movement, LaRouche Youth Movement, and Schiller Institute

Lyndon LaRouche and his German-born wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche run a global political movement from their bases in Leesburg, Virginia, and Wiesbaden, Germany. The movement consists of an interlocking network of think tanks, magazines and newspapers, national and international political organizations, a political action committee, and a youth cadre. It teaches that LaRouche is a figure of international political importance, and that political activism on his behalf might save the world from an imminent global crisis. The movement has been associated in the mainstream media with violence against its political opponents, antisemitism, fraudulent use of political donations, aggressive recruiting techniques, and the dissemination of political conspiracy theories.[3][4][5][6] In Germany, the group's think-tank is the Schiller Institute; according to the Berliner Zeitung, it has a core following of about 300 in that country, and "next to Scientology, is the cult soliciting most aggressively in German streets at this time."[7]

The movement's members insist the allegations against it are misrepresentations, and that LaRouche is a brilliant and widely misunderstood leader. Regarding the allegation of antisemitism, LaRouche writes: "Religious and racial hatred, such as anti-Semitism, or hatred against Islam, or, hatred of Christians, is, on record of known history, the most evil expression of criminality to be seen on the planet today."[8]

Duggan's involvement with the movement

Duggan's first contact with the LaRouche movement was when he bought a LaRouche newspaper in a Paris street in early 2003. The newspaper is published by Solidarité et Progrès, the LaRouche movement's political party in France. Duggan was invited to a three-day Schiller Institute conference in Wiesbaden, travelling there on March 21, 2003 with eight others.

Duggan said in telephone calls to his parents and his French girlfriend that he found the Schiller Institute "extreme," but the conference stimulating. Lyndon LaRouche himself was the keynote speaker.[9] The Washington Post reports that the mood of the conference was "apocalyptic."[9] and included claims 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." The global warfare plot had been 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."[9][10]

Duggan's mother told a reporter that a senior member of the Schiller Institute told her that "Jerry had reacted strongly when he heard the Jews being blamed for the Iraq war. He had stood up and exclaimed: 'But I'm a Jew!'"[11] According to the Berliner Zeitung, another participant said that this marked him out. They "really put Jeremiah through the wringer for that," the witness said. [7]

After the conference, Duggan decided to attend a LaRouche movement cadre school with about fifty others in a nearby youth hostel.[9] One participant later told his mother that he had rubbed the organizers up the wrong way, in part because he had declared he was Jewish.[7] A participant also said he had told organizers that he had undergone family therapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London when he was seven years old during his parents' divorce. [9] The LaRouche movement believes that the related Tavistock Institute is involved with British intelligence and is a "brainwashing center." [7][9]

Death

Telephone calls

At around 4:15 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, Duggan telephoned his girlfriend, Maya, in France. She told the BBC's Newsnight:

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 they were causing lots of pain to their arms and legs. I tried to find out where he was, but he wouldn't say.[10]

Duggan telephoned his mother in London just before 4:30 a.m. He told her he was in trouble and frightened. He said he wanted to see her, and began to spell out the name of the town he was in. At that point, the line went dead for the second time during the conversation.[9]

The Berliner Straße

Forty-five minutes later, Duggan ran out on to the Berliner Straße, or B-445, a busy road in the Wiesbaden suburb of Erbenheim, near the LaRouche headquarters,[7] and five kilometers from the apartment where he had been staying. According to the Daily Mail, four drivers told the police that Duggan had run into the road in front of them.[12] The British inquest heard that he was hit by one car, but continued running along the road for another kilometer. The inquest was told that a second car knocked him down, then a third car ran over him. [13]

The investigation

The inquest

The German police allegedly decided it was a suicide within three hours of the death.[7][14] A British inquest held six months later, in November 2003, heard that a London Metropolitan Police report had described the LaRouche movement as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."[2] A British psychiatrist testified that Duggan had no history of mental illness, and submitted a paper describing a severe stress reaction that can be caused by a rapid change in a person's belief system. Duggan's mother told the court she believed that Duggan had been the victim of a recruiting technique known as "ego stripping," in which recruits are made to doubt all their basic beliefs, and which psychiatrists believe can lead to a mental breakdown.[15][9] The coroner delivered a narrative verdict, which is unusual in British inquests, saying that Duggan had been in a "state of terror" when he died, and questioned the role of the LaRouche movement, calling it "murky and secretive," according to the Daily Mail. He ruled that Duggan had received fatal head injuries when hit by a car, but of the German police's suicide conclusion, he said, "Having weighed up all the evidence, I clearly reject that opinion."[13]

Calls for a new inquiry

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries has been asked by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to reopen the police investigation.[16]

There have been a number of calls for a new inquiry. In July 2006 and March 2007, Erica Duggan's lawyers in the UK, Leigh Day & Co, asked the British attorney general to order a second inquest. They based their request on a review of evidence conducted by pathologists and a forensic photographer commissioned by the family. The photographer is reported to have said there were no traces of skin, hair, blood, or clothing on the vehicles that allegedly hit Duggan, nor on the road, and no tyre marks.[12][1] The family has subsequently advanced the theory that Duggan may have been murdered, an allegation firmly rejected by the German authorities.[17]

Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Director of International Relations in Paris, wrote to Brigitte Zypries, the German Justice Minister, in November 2006, asking that the German investigation be re-opened. He noted "the many messages of concern from our membership regarding seminars held at the Schiller Institute in Wiesbaden and the activities in Germany of its parent body, the Larouche organization." The letter added that "these expressions of apprehension came, particularly, from parents of students recruited internationally to the so-called Larouche Youth Movement."[16] Samuels wrote of the conference Duggan attended: "Ostensibly, this was a seminar on the Iraq war but Jeremiah's lecture-notes, found in his bag after his death, apparently point to stereotyping and antisemitic conspiracy theories to explain the background to that war and other global problems."[16]

Labour peer Lord Janner of Braunstone has asked the attorney general to order a second inquest.[18] In May 2007, a group of British MPs supported that request, and asked that the British government request a review of the case by the German authorities.[19]

Response

German prosecutors' response

A spokesman for the Wiesbaden prosecutor's office responded that there is no need to re-open the investigation, according to the Daily Mail. "This was a cut and dried suicide," he said.[12] In April 2007, Harmut Ferse, spokesman for the Wiesbaden public prosecutor's office, was interviewed by the Wiesbadener Kurier. He stated that the investigation of Duggan's death had been very thorough, and he showed the reporter ten thick folders filled with documents relating to the case. According to Ferse, no other case of apparent suicide has ever caused so much work for his office. He suggested that the murder theory has developed because Duggan's mother is unable to accept that her son committed suicide. The Kurier's coverage refers to the various theories as "legends" (Legende,) and indicates that the theories keep gaining new adherents, but no evidence. [17]

LaRouche movement response

A spokesman for the LaRouche movement has suggested that Duggan was suffering from a mental illness,[20] and that the current stories about his death developed only after political interference. The spokesman wrote that, after Duggan's death, Mrs. Duggan met with representatives of the Schiller Institute in a "sympathetic" meeting,[20] and that Mrs. Duggan's attitude changed only after British minister Elizabeth Symons intervened in the affair on behalf of the British Foreign Office.[20]

In November 2006, LaRouche himself issued a statement saying that the allegations were a hoax stemming from a campaign against him orchestrated by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President of the United States, and Cheney's wife, Lynne.[21][20] 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.[22]

The British band Starsailor have written a song about him, called "Jeremiah," which is included on their latest album On The Outside.[23]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Mark Townsend and Jamie Doward, "New evidence shows 'suicide' student was beaten to death", The Observer, March 25, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Townsend, Mark. "The student, the shadowy cult and a mother's fight for justice", The Observer, October 31, 2004.
  3. ^ Berlet, Chip. "Protocols to the Left, Protocols to the Right: Conspiracism in American Political Discourse at the Turn of the Second Millennium," (dedicated to Jeremiah Duggan), paper presented at the conference: Reconsidering "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion": 100 Years After the Forgery, The Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, Boston University, October 30-31, 2005.
  4. ^ Berlet, Chip. "Lyndon LaRouche: Fascist Demagogue, LaRouche's Antisemitic Conspiracism, Public Eye, undated, retrieved February 16, 2005.
  5. ^ Gilbert, Helen. Lyndon LaRouche: Fascism restyled for the new Millennium, Red Letter Press, 2003. ISBN 0-932323-21-9
  6. ^ King, Dennis. Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, Doubleday, 1999. ISBN 0-385-23880-0
  7. ^ a b c d e f Nordhausen, Frank. "A Mother's Investigations", Berliner Zeitung, April 4, 2007, page 3.
  8. ^ LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. "On The Press Hoax Against the Pope: Britain's Bernard Lewis & His Crimes", Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee, September 17, 2006.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Witt, April. "No Joke", The Washington Post, October 24, 2004.
  10. ^ a b Samuels, Tim. "Jeremiah Duggan and Lyndon LaRouche," Newsnight, 2006, possibly November 28, 2006. begins here, continues, concludes.
  11. ^ Kirkby, Terry. "The Lost Boy", The Independent, August 28, 2003.
  12. ^ a b c Rayner, Gordon. "It was murder, say family of boy in cult suicide riddle", Daily Mail, March 27, 2007.
  13. ^ a b Midgley, Carol. "Student died in terror of cult", The Times, November 7, 2003.
  14. ^ Foggo, Daniel. "German police probe into British student's death was 'inadequate'", The Daily Telegraph, March 26, 2007.
  15. ^ Mintz, John. "Ideological Odyssey: From Old Left to Far Right", Washington Post, 1985.
  16. ^ a b c "Wiesenthal Centre Appeals to German Justice Minister: "Reopen Investigation into Death of Jewish Student Attending Larouche Movement Seminar on Iraq War", Simon Weisenthal Center, November 10, 2006.
  17. ^ a b Degen, Wolfgang, "Nur die Legende hat ein langes Leben", Wiesbadener Kurier, April 19, 2007.
  18. ^ Nugent, Helen. "Call for new inquest on Jewish student linked to far-right 'cult'", The Times, March 28, 2007.
  19. ^ Muir, Hugh. "MPs want inquiry on Jewish man's death in Germany to be reopened", The Guardian, May 24, 2007.
  20. ^ a b c d Steinberg, Jeffrey. "The Bizarre Case of Baroness Symons", Executive Intelligence Review, June 25, 2004.
  21. ^ LaRouche, Lyndon H. "Cheney Behind Press Campaign, Duggan Hoax Rewarmed Again", Lyndon LaRouche political action committee, November 8, 2006.
  22. ^ "London 'Friends of Dick Cheney and Al Gore' Behind New Slander of LaRouche", Lyndon LaRouche political action committee, March 25, 2007.
  23. ^ Website of Starsailor, retrieved August 28, 2006.

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_of_Jeremiah_Duggan&oldid=142239998"