Jeremiah Duggan

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Jeremiah 'Jerry' Duggan (November 10, 1980 – March 27, 2003), a British student at the Sorbonne, 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 movement 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 after hearing that he was struck by several 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]

Contents 1 Background 1.1 Early life and education 1.2 LaRouche movement 1.3 Duggan's involvement 2 Death 3 The investigation 3.1 The inquest 3.2 Calls for a new inquiry 4 Response 4.1 German prosecutors' response 4.2 LaRouche movement response 5 Popular media 6 Notes 7 Further reading

[edit] Background

[edit] Early life and education

Duggan was born in London, the son of Hugo, who has was born in Ireland, and Erica, who is Jewish and who followed Jewish traditions while raising her son. He attended Christ's Hospital School in Horsham, Sussex, after which 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.

[edit] LaRouche movement

LaRouche movement

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

Lyndon LaRouche and his wife run a global political movement from their bases in Leesburg, Virginia, and Wiesbaden, Germany. The movement consists of a network of think tanks, publications, political action committees, and a youth cadre, which promote the view that LaRouche is a figure of international political importance. The network has been associated in the mainstream media with violence against its opponents, fraudulent use of donations, aggressive recruiting techniques, the dissemination of conspiracy theories, and antisemitism,^[3] a charge Larouche strongly denies, calling racial and religious hatred "the most evil expression of criminality to be seen on the planet today."^[4] The movement's members insist the allegations against it are misrepresentations, and that LaRouche is a brilliant and widely misunderstood leader.

In Germany, the movement is represented by the Schiller Institute, which organized the conference Duggan attended. The Berliner Zeitung writes that it has a following of about 300 in that country, and "next to Scientology, is the cult soliciting most aggressively in German streets at this time."^[5]

[edit] Duggan's involvement

Duggan's first came into contact with the movement in March 2003 in a street in Paris, when he bought a newspaper published by Solidarité et Progrès, the movement's political party in France, and accepted an invitation to a three-day Schiller Institute conference in Wiesbaden.

The Washington Post reports that the mood of the conference was "apocalyptic," with LaRouche himself the keynote speaker. He told the audience 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."^[6] 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."^[6][7]

Duggan's mother says that a senior member of the Schiller Institute told her Jerry "reacted strongly when he heard the Jews being blamed for the Iraq war. He had stood up and exclaimed: 'But I'm a Jew!'"^[8] After the conference, Duggan attended a LaRouche cadre school in a nearby youth hostel. According to the Berliner Zeitung, another participant said that his declaration that he was a Jew marked him out — they "really put Jeremiah through the wringer for that," the witness said^[5] — as did his story that he had undergone family therapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London when he was seven years old, during his parents' divorce. The LaRouche movement believes that the related Tavistock Institute is involved with British intelligence and is a "brainwashing center."^[5][6]

[edit] Death

At 4:15 a.m. on March 27, Duggan telephoned his girlfriend in France. She told the BBC that he sounded agitated. "He was talking very quietly. He said that they were doing experiments on humans with computers ... 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."^[9]

Duggan telephoned his mother in London just before 4:30 a.m., saying he was in trouble and frightened, and wanted to see her. He began to spell out the name of the town he was in, at which point the line went dead.^[6] Forty-five minutes later, he ran out on to the Berliner Straße, or B-445, a busy road in the Wiesbaden suburb of Erbenheim, near the LaRouche headquarters, and five kilometers from the apartment where he had been staying.^[5] Four drivers reportedly told the police that Duggan had run in front of them.^[10] A British inquest heard in November 2003 that he was hit by one car, but continued running along the road for another kilometer until a second car knocked him down, and a third car ran over him.^[11]

[edit] The investigation

[edit] The inquest

The German police are reported to have decided it was a suicide within three hours of the death.^[5][12] The British inquest heard from a psychiatrist that Duggan had no history of mental illness, and that 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.^[13][6] The court heard that a London Metropolitan Police report had described the LaRouche movement as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."^[2] The coroner delivered a narrative verdict, ruling that Duggan had received fatal head injuries when hit by a car, and rejecting a suicide verdict.^[11]

[edit] Calls for a new inquiry

In July 2006 and March 2007, Erica Duggan's lawyers 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.^[10][1] The family has subsequently advanced the theory that Duggan may have been murdered, an allegation firmly rejected by the German authorities.^[15]

Labour peer Lord Janner of Braunstone also requested a second inquest.^[16] In November 2006, Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center asked Brigitte Zypries, the German Justice Minister, to re-open the German investigation,^[14] and in May 2007, 96 British MPs requested a second inquest and a review by the German authorities.^[17]

[edit] Response

[edit] German prosecutors' response

A spokesman for the Wiesbaden prosecutor's office said the case was a "cut and dried suicide."^[10] In April 2007, Harmut Ferse of the Wiesbaden public prosecutor's office told the Wiesbadener Kurier that the investigation had been very thorough. He showed the reporter ten thick folders of documents related to the case and said that no other apparent suicide had ever caused so much work for his office. He suggested that the murder theory developed because Duggan's mother cannot accept that her son committed suicide. The newspaper refers to the various theories as "myths" ("Legende"), adding that the theories keep gaining adherents, but no evidence.^[15]

[edit] LaRouche movement response

A spokesman for the LaRouche movement suggested Duggan was suffering from a mental illness,^[18] and that the stories about his death developed only after political interference. The spokesman wrote that, after Duggan's death, his mother met with representatives of the Schiller Institute in a "sympathetic" meeting,^[18] and that her attitude changed only after British minister Elizabeth Symons intervened on behalf of the British Foreign Office.^[18]

In November 2006, LaRouche issued a statement saying the allegations were a hoax stemming from a campaign orchestrated by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President of the United States, and Cheney's wife.^[19][18] 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.^[20]

In September 2007, the LaRouche Political Action Committee published a letter that it said was obtained under the British Freedom of Information Act stating that, on July 14, 2003, a member of the London Metropolitan Police Service had concluded that Duggan's death had been "fully investigated" in Germany. [1]

[edit] Popular media

The British band Starsailor have written a song about him, "Jeremiah," which is included on their album On The Outside.^[21]

[edit] Notes

[edit] Further reading