Jeremiah Duggan

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Jeremiah 'Jerry' Duggan (November 10, 1980 – March 27, 2003), a British student at the Sorbonne in 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 initial claims that he was struck by two vehicles while running down a busy road. ^[1] This conclusion was supported by a British inquest, though it rejected a suicide verdict after hearing the Schiller Institute described by Scotland Yard as a "political cult with sinister and dangerous connections." ^[2][3] In March 2007, two reports by private forensic pathologists retained by attorneys for Duggan's mother were released suggesting he "was battered to death with a blunt instrument as he tried desperately to defend himself." The forensic specialists found "no evidence that he had been struck by a vehicle."^[1]

With the support of the British government, Duggan's mother is pressing the German government to reopen the case, and she has asked the British attorney general to order a second inquest. Baroness Ludford MEP has said she may request the formal intervention of the European Parliament. ^[4] The Simon Wiesenthal Center has asked the German justice minister to reopen the police investigation, and to hold an enquiry to determine whether Duggan's being Jewish played any role in his death, in light of his lecture notes found in his bag, which the Center writes "apparently point[ed] to stereotyping and antisemitic conspiracy theories." The Center also asked the minister "to impose the full application of German law to the supervision of the Larouche Youth Movement and its network of affiliates." ^[5]

Lyndon LaRouche has called the allegations a "hoax" and an "obvious fabrication" constructed by supporters of the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and the U.S. vice-president, Dick Cheney, as part of a campaign to discredit LaRouche over his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. ^[6][7]

Contents 1 Background 1.1 The LaRouche movement 2 Duggan's death 3 The investigation 3.1 The inquest 3.2 Call for a second inquest and a new inquiry 3.3 New forensic reports 4 LaRouche movement response 5 Recruitment allegation 6 Popular media 7 Notes 8 References 9 Further reading

[edit] Background

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 Sorbonne.

Duggan's first contact with the LaRouche movement was when he bought a newspaper in a Paris street in early 2003 from Benoit Chalifoux, the editor of Nouvelle Solidarité, the LaRouche movement's French-language newspaper. ^[8] Chalifoux befriended Duggan and started teaching him about international politics, according to Duggan's telephone calls to his parents, then invited him to attend a Schiller Institute political conference in Wiesbaden, where the European center of the LaRouche network is based. Duggan and Chalifoux travelled there together on March 21, 2003 with eight other LaRouche members in a convoy of cars. In Wiesbaden, Duggan was given a place to sleep in an apartment belonging to Schiller Institute managers Rainer and Ursula Apel.

[edit] The LaRouche movement

Main articles: LaRouche movement and LaRouche Youth Movement

Further information: United States v. LaRouche,  Lyndon LaRouche U.S. Presidential campaigns, and Political views of Lyndon LaRouche

Lyndon LaRouche and his German-born wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche run a worldwide political movement from their bases in Leesburg, Virginia, and Wiesbaden, Germany. The group is widely seen as a fringe political cult. LaRouche was released from jail in 1994 after serving five years of a 15-year sentence for conspiracy, mail fraud and tax code violations.

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 Lyndon LaRouche is a central figure of international political and cultural 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 in the U.S., Germany, and the UK with violence against its political opponents, anti-Semitism, fraudulent use of political donations, aggressive recruiting techniques, and the dissemination of political conspiracy theories. ^{[9][10][11][12]}

Its members insist these allegations are misrepresentations, and that LaRouche is a brilliant and widely misunderstood leader. Regarding the allegation of anti-Semitism, 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." ^[13]

[edit] Duggan's death

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 one of the speakers at the conference.

Duggan's mother told a reporter that after Jeremiah's death, Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, 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!'"^[14]

After the conference, Duggan decided to attend a cadre school held by the LaRouche Youth Movement in a nearby youth hostel, attended by about 50 members. ^[15]

At around 4:15 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, Duggan telephoned his girlfriend. In a statement to Scotland Yard, she said he sounded incoherent and faint. He said: "I'm under too much pressure. I don't know what the truth is any more, or what are lies." He said his arms and legs hurt and he had discovered some "very grave things" but could not tell her about them on the telephone. He said he would return to Paris the next day and would tell her then. ^[15]

Duggan next telephoned his mother in London just before 4:30 a.m. He said in a quiet voice: "Mum, I'm in terrible trouble, deep trouble. I want to be out of this. It's too much for me. I can't do this. I want out..." The line went dead. He called back seconds later and said, "I am frightened." She told him she loved him. At this, he shouted, "I want to see you now," and began to spell out the name of the town he was in. At that point, the line went dead again. ^[15]

Forty-five minutes later, Duggan ran out on to the Berliner Straße, a busy road five kilometers from the apartment where he had been staying. The British inquest heard that he was hit by one car, but according to eyewitnesses, he 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. He was initially believed to have sustained fatal head injuries as a result of being hit by the cars. The second driver who, the court was told had hit him, said Duggan ran toward the car with his arms outstretched and his mouth open. ^[2]

After Duggan's death, German police found that a senior Schiller Institute manager, Ortrun Kramer, was in possession of Duggan's passport. One of the issues the family wants to resolve is whether Cramer took possession of Duggan's passport before his death.^[16]

[edit] The investigation

[edit] The inquest

The German police initially pronounced Duggan's death a suicide. The British inquest held in London in November 2003 concluded there was nothing in the police report or in Duggan's background that suggested suicide, including no history of mental illness.

The court heard that a Scotland Yard (London Metropolitan Police) report described the LaRouche movement as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections." The British psychiatrist who studied Duggan's medical history for the court also submitted a paper describing a severe stress reaction that can be caused by a rapid change in a person's belief system. Summing up, Coroner Dr. William Dolman said:

What was it, we ask ourselves, that turned a stable and apparently happy young man with a stable relationship, what was it that turned that young man into a terrified young man? We know that the weekend before he'd had friendly conversations with his girlfriend on the phone, that was five days before his death. What was it that impelled him to make a phone call in the early hours at 4.20 a.m in the morning on the day of his death? Then phone his mother an hour later. There is no doubt that there had been a huge change. What was he frightened of? What was he scared of, indeed terrified of? Was he scared of what might happen to him? Sadly we might never know what it was, but something had happened that made him run away from the house into the road.

Dolman then said he would deliver a narrative verdict. This is unusual in British courts, where coroners' verdicts are normally terse and formal:

Jeremiah Joseph Duggan received fatal head injuries when he ran into the road in Wiesbaden and was hit by two private motor cars. 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. ^[2]

[edit] Call for a second inquest and a new inquiry

Erica Duggan's lawyers, Leigh Day & Co, have asked the British Attorney-General to order a new inquest. They say that new evidence from a forensic photographer indicates that Duggan may have lost his life elsewhere before being placed at the scene. They say that there were no traces of skin, hair, blood, or clothing on the vehicles that allegedly hit him, or on the road. They also say there were no tyre marks. ^[17]

In October 2006, Erica Duggan filed a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, alleging a breach of fundamental rights on the grounds that Duggan's death was not properly investigated and that Erica Duggan's subsequent submissions were ignored. ^[18]

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 police investigation be re-opened, and 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." ^[5]

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." ^[5] Samuels asked the minister, "on this 68th anniversary of 'Kristallnacht', the prelude to the Holocaust and, ironically, Jeremiah Duggan's posthumous birthday ... [to] ensure total transparency in the resolution of this enquiry." ^[5]

[edit] New forensic reports

In March 2007, The Observer reported that Erica Duggan's lawyers had commissioned two reports from leading forensic pathologists, which concluded that Duggan was "battered to death with a blunt instrument as he tried desperately to defend himself." The pathologists found no trace of tyre marks on his body or any other evidence that he had been struck by a car. The reports say there were "defence wounds" on Duggan's arms and hands, which The Observer says usually suggest the victim was trying to protect himself. Duggan's head injuries are reportedly consistent with being beaten and, according to the two reports, "exclude any possibility that the injuries to his head occurred because a motor vehicle ran over the body."^[1]

According to The Observer, both reports are "unanimous in rejecting the official account that Duggan was struck by two vehicles on the night he died in March 2003." The pathologists also found that Duggan had "ingested quantities of blood." That he survived long enough to swallow his own blood suggests that he took a long time to die, reports The Observer, rather than dying instantly after being hit by a car traveling at 60 mph.^[1]

The pathologists' reports will be sent to the Attorney General as part of Erica Duggan's request for a new inquest.^[1]

[edit] LaRouche movement response

LaRouche Movement

Lyndon LaRouche LaRouche's political views U.S. Presidential campaigns United States v. LaRouche People Helga Zepp-LaRouche Michael Billington Amelia Boynton Robinson Jacques Cheminade Janice Hart Jeremiah Duggan Political organizations LaRouche Movement National Caucus of Labor Committees Citizens Electoral Council LaRouche Youth Movement Schiller Institute European Workers Party

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A spokesman for the LaRouche movement denied the Schiller Institute was involved in Duggan's death, and has suggested that he was suffering from a mental illness. In a June 2004 article in the organization's weekly news magazine, Executive Intelligence Review, Larouche's director of counter-intelligence, Jeffrey Steinberg, wrote that Duggan had told his conference room-mates he had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), an illness that Steinberg alleged can induce schizophrenic behavior, including paranoia. ^[19]

Steinberg wrote that Duggan had shown signs of emotional stress the day before his death, and had fled from the apartment where he was staying at 3:30 in the morning. On the Sunday prior to his death, according to Steinberg, Duggan had tried to find a pharmacy where he could obtain prescription drugs. After he went missing on the morning of his death, a LaRouche Youth Movement organizer telephoned Duggan's girlfriend in Paris to ask whether she had heard from him. She is alleged to have asked, in what Steinberg called a cynical tone, "Is there a river nearby?", implying that Duggan was already known to have suicidal tendencies. However, the girlfriend has told reporters she asked this because she was trying to find Wiesbaden on a map.

Steinberg also wrote that Duggan had attended group counseling sessions with his parents at the Tavistock Clinic when Duggan was seven years old and his parents were divorcing. One of the claims of the LaRouche movement is that the Tavistock, a well-known psychotherapy center in London, is involved in researching and practising mind control. Mrs. Duggan is worried that her son may have been singled out because he questioned the group's views on the Tavistock.

Steinberg said that, after Duggan's death, Mrs. Duggan met with representatives of the Schiller Institute in what Steinberg described as a "sympathetic" meeting. He wrote that Mrs. Duggan's attitude changed only after British minister Elizabeth Symons intervened in the affair on behalf of the British Foreign Office. According to Steinberg, Symons is a member of what the LaRouche movement calls the "trans-Atlantic network" that seeks to damage LaRouche because of his opposition to what it calls the Blair-Cheney Iraq War. ^[19]

In November 2006, LaRouche 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. ^[7]

[edit] Recruitment allegation

Duggan's mother believes Duggan may have been the victim of a recruiting technique known as "ego stripping," in which the recruit is made to doubt all their basic beliefs, and which psychiatrists believe can lead to a mental breakdown. ^[20][15][21] Nikolas Becker, the Berlin lawyer who represented former East German Communist leader Erich Honecker during the Berlin Wall shootings trial, is representing the Duggan family in their efforts to have the Germans investigate the Schiller Institute. Becker told a British newspaper: "There is enough evidence [Duggan] was probably in a hopeless psychotic situation [when he died] and there is no evidence that there was any mental illness in his family. It is known these kind of organizations produce this kind of psychotic breakdown."

[edit] Popular media

The British band Starsailor have written a song about him, called "Jeremiah," which is included on their latest album On The Outside. ^[22]

[edit] Notes