Jeremiah Duggan
Encyclopedia
Jeremiah Duggan was a British
student at the Sorbonne
who died on 27 March 2003 in Wiesbaden, Germany, while attending a youth cadre school organized by the LaRouche movement
, an international network led by the American political activist Lyndon LaRouche
.
The German police said Duggan had committed suicide after witnesses said he ran onto a busy road and was struck by several cars. The circumstances of his death became a matter of public dispute when a British inquest rejected a suicide verdict, after hearing the view of the London Metropolitan Police that the LaRouche movement is a political cult. After Duggan's family commissioned private forensic reports suggesting he may not have been hit by the cars, and that his death may have occurred elsewhere, the High Court in London ordered a second inquest, which opened and adjourned in June 2010.
The German authorities have declined to reopen their investigation. The Wiesbaden prosecutor said in 2004 there was no doubt 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. In March 2009 a spokesman stressed again that there was no evidence linking the LaRouche movement to the death. In February 2010 the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
rejected the Duggan family's request for judicial review.
The LaRouche movement has said the controversy surrounding the death was stirred up by LaRouche's political opponents—including former British prime minister Tony Blair and former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney—because of LaRouche's criticism of the 2003 Iraq war and the man-made global warming hypothesis, and that the affair is being used by anti-cult activists to discredit the movement.
during the Holocaust; she herself left South Africa
for England
because of apartheid. The couple had two daughters, followed by Duggan; they divorced when he was seven. 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 he became interested in politics after 9/11, and told his parents he felt it was important to protest against the Iraq war, which is what led him to take an interest in the LaRouche movement.
Lyndon LaRouche and his German wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche
, run a global political network of publications, committees, and a youth cadre, based in Leesburg, Virginia, and Wiesbaden, Germany. LaRouche has stood as an American presidential candidate eight times. 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. Since the 1970s the movement has been associated in the mainstream media with the promotion of conspiracy theories, and at times throughout its history with the use of violence against its opponents, the fraudulent use of donations, and anti-Semitism. There has been criticism of its reported use of a recruiting technique known as "ego-stripping". The Sunday Times writes that 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. The movement's members say the allegations are misrepresentations, and LaRouche himself has strongly denied the charge of anti-Semitism.
LaRouche is particularly critical of Britain, a position adopted by the movement, something Duggan's family say may have been a relevant factor in the movement's view of Duggan. LaRouche said in 1980 that the British are more evil than Hitler, and that British intelligence is involved in global brainwashing and drug dealing. 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
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
.
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, and one of the movement's recruiters. Chalifoux befriended him, then invited him to attend a three-day Schiller Institute anti-war conference in Bad Schwalbach
, near Wiesbaden. Duggan asked his mother to look up LaRouche on the Web, but she misspelled it "Laroche," and found nothing to cause concern. Duggan and Chalifoux travelled to Wiesbaden on 21 March with eight other LaRouche members. Once there, Duggan was given a place to sleep with two other members, Sébastien Drochon and Jean-Adrien, in an apartment belonging to two Schiller Institute managers, Rainer and Ursula Apel.
from the White House, John F. Kennedy was killed by a domestic American operation, and the U.S. was using the war in Iraq to ignite global warfare. 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. In 2004, Aglaja Beyes-Corleis, who left the LaRouche movement in the early 1990s after being involved with it for 16 years, told the BBC that 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.
According to April Witt in The Washington Post, Duggan stood out because he was British and Jewish. Aglaja Beyes-Corleis told the BBC that Jewish members could be placed under particular pressure at meetings. A memo from the London Metropolitan Police submitted as evidence at Duggan's inquest said the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Youth Movement blamed the Jewish people for the Iraq war and other world problems; the memo said that "Jeremiah's lecture notes and bulletins showed the anti-Semitic nature of [the] 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 war during a seminar, he had stood up and said, "But I'm a Jew!" One participant said the others put him "through the wringer" because of it.
Witt writes that Duggan may also have been placed under pressure because he told the others he had gone to the Tavistock Clinic
as a child for a family counselling session when his parents divorced. 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 Witt, LaRouche has been concerned since the 1970s that his members might be brainwashed by intelligence agencies to harm him. She writes that 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 attended at least one session, said later this referred to the 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."
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 did not 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 local time—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 Duggan were made from the same cell phone or directly after the call to Maya. Mrs. Duggan told the BBC that 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. She told the BBC he said "Mum, I'm in ... big trouble ... You know this Nouvelle Solidarité? .." He said, "I can't do this" ... I want out." The line went dead and he called back, reportedly saying, "Mum, I'm frightened." She said: "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. ..." He told her he was in 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, Drochon said. Drochon said he ran after him but was unable to catch up. He then told a Schiller Institute manager, Ortrun Cramer, that Duggan had left the house.
(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.
Erica Duggan obtained Drochon's cell phone number from Maya, and 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. Mrs. Duggan 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 Mrs. Duggan 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 am 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, bag, and 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."
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.
Duggan's family appealed the decision to close the police investigation, but it was rejected by the Oberlandesgericht
in Frankfurt in July 2006. Their appeal against that decision was rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany on 4 February 2010.
at Barnet General Hospital. Blood samples showed no trace of drugs or alcohol. Shove found serious head injuries, bruising on the backs of the arms and hands—which a second pathologist later called "defence wounds"—and blood in the lungs and stomach. He concluded that Duggan had died of head injuries. He did not give evidence at the inquest. Duggan's mother said she had a conversation with the pathologist in which he said he had not been told Duggan had been in a collision with a car, and that he did not believe this was the case, but he declined to sign a statement to that effect, according to Mrs. Duggan.
The first inquest was held on 6 and 7 November 2003. The court heard from a psychiatrist, Elizabeth Tylden
, who specialized in psychosis induced in cult members, that a severe stress reaction can be caused by a rapid change in a person's belief system. The court also heard that a London Metropolitan Police memo described the movement as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections." The coroner, Dr. William Dolman, ruled that Duggan had been "sucked into" an extreme political organization, and had received fatal head injuries when he ran into the road and was hit by two cars. He added: "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."
requesting the same. The High Court ordered the new inquest in May 2010 and quashed the findings of the first. Lord Justice Elias said evidence not available during the first inquest pointed to the possibility that the crash was "stage managed" to look like an accident, and that foul play may have occurred. The court heard a claim that the movement may have believed Duggan was a spy.
The new inquest was opened and adjourned by coroner Andrew Walker
at Barnet Coroners Court on 22 June 2010. The coroner ruled that the LaRouche organization be recognized as an interested party, and that the family's evidence would have to be disclosed to them. The Duggans' barrister, Neil Sheldon, said there were one or two documents the Duggans would argue could not be shared with the LaRouche movement to protect the identity of their source. The coroner said he would pass the evidence to the Metropolitan's Police serious crime directorate with a view to them conducting an investigation.
, 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 September 2007, the LaRouche Political Action Committee published a letter from the London Metropolitan Police, dated 14 July 2003, that it said was obtained under the British Freedom of Information Act, in which an 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."
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
student at the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
who died on 27 March 2003 in Wiesbaden, Germany, while attending a youth cadre school organized by the LaRouche movement
LaRouche movement
The LaRouche movement is an international political and cultural network that promotes Lyndon LaRouche and his ideas. It has included scores of organizations and companies around the world. Their activities include campaigning, private intelligence gathering, and publishing numerous periodicals,...
, an international network led by the American political activist Lyndon LaRouche
Lyndon LaRouche
Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. is an American political activist and founder of a network of political committees, parties, and publications known collectively as the LaRouche movement...
.
The German police said Duggan had committed suicide after witnesses said he ran onto a busy road and was struck by several cars. The circumstances of his death became a matter of public dispute when a British inquest rejected a suicide verdict, after hearing the view of the London Metropolitan Police that the LaRouche movement is a political cult. After Duggan's family commissioned private forensic reports suggesting he may not have been hit by the cars, and that his death may have occurred elsewhere, the High Court in London ordered a second inquest, which opened and adjourned in June 2010.
The German authorities have declined to reopen their investigation. The Wiesbaden prosecutor said in 2004 there was no doubt 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. In March 2009 a spokesman stressed again that there was no evidence linking the LaRouche movement to the death. In February 2010 the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
The Federal Constitutional Court is a special court established by the Grundgesetz, the German basic law...
rejected the Duggan family's request for judicial review.
The LaRouche movement has said the controversy surrounding the death was stirred up by LaRouche's political opponents—including former British prime minister Tony Blair and former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney—because of LaRouche's criticism of the 2003 Iraq war and the man-made global warming hypothesis, and that the affair is being used by anti-cult activists to discredit the movement.
Duggan family
Jeremiah Joseph Duggan was born in north London on 10 November 1980 to Hugo Duggan, who was raised in Skerries, Dublin, and his wife Erica, a retired schoolteacher originally from South Africa. Erica Duggan's father was a German Jew who fled the countryGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
during the Holocaust; she herself left South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
for England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
because of apartheid. The couple had two daughters, followed by Duggan; they divorced when he was seven. 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 he became interested in politics after 9/11, and told his parents he felt it was important to protest against the Iraq war, which is what led him to take an interest in the LaRouche movement.
LaRouche movement
Helga Zepp-LaRouche
Helga Zepp-LaRouche is a German political activist, wife of American political activist Lyndon LaRouche, and founder of the LaRouche movement's Schiller Institute and the German Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität party .She has run for political office several times in Germany, representing small...
, run a global political network of publications, committees, and a youth cadre, based in Leesburg, Virginia, and Wiesbaden, Germany. LaRouche has stood as an American presidential candidate eight times. 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. Since the 1970s the movement has been associated in the mainstream media with the promotion of conspiracy theories, and at times throughout its history with the use of violence against its opponents, the fraudulent use of donations, and anti-Semitism. There has been criticism of its reported use of a recruiting technique known as "ego-stripping". The Sunday Times writes that 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. The movement's members say the allegations are misrepresentations, and LaRouche himself has strongly denied the charge of anti-Semitism.
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
(MI6) was threatening to assassinate him, probably with backing from the royal household. In Germany, the movement is represented by the Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität
Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität
Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität , or the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity, is a German political party founded by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, wife of U.S. political activist Lyndon LaRouche....
and the Schiller Institute
Schiller Institute
The Schiller Institute is an international political and economic thinktank, one of the primary organizations of the LaRouche movement, with headquarters in Germany and the United States, and supporters in Australia, Canada, Russia, and South America, among others, according to its website.The...
, 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
Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement
The Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement and the LaRouche Political Action Committee are part of the political organization of controversial American political figure Lyndon LaRouche...
.
Nouvelle Solidarité
Duggan's first contact with the LaRouche movement was in Paris in early 2003 when he bought an anti-war newspaper in the street outside the InvalidesInvalides (Paris Metro and RER)
Invalides is a station on lines 8 and 13 of the Paris Métro and RER in the 7th arrondissement, located near and named after les Invalides.The station was opened on 13 July 1913 as part of the original section of Line 8 between Beaugrenelle and Opéra...
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, and one of the movement's recruiters. Chalifoux befriended him, then invited him to attend a three-day Schiller Institute anti-war conference in Bad Schwalbach
Bad Schwalbach
Bad Schwalbach is the district seat of Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany.- Geographic Location :Bad Schwalbach is a spa town some 20 km northwest of Wiesbaden. It lies at 289 to 465 m above sea level in the Taunus, along the small river Aar...
, near Wiesbaden. Duggan asked his mother to look up LaRouche on the Web, but she misspelled it "Laroche," and found nothing to cause concern. Duggan and Chalifoux travelled to Wiesbaden on 21 March with eight other LaRouche members. Once there, Duggan was given a place to sleep with two other members, Sébastien Drochon and Jean-Adrien, in an apartment belonging to two Schiller Institute managers, Rainer and Ursula Apel.
Wiesbaden conference
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. The Post writes that LaRouche told the audience George W. Bush was an unreformed drunk, Woodrow Wilson had founded the Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
from the White House, John F. Kennedy was killed by a domestic American operation, and the U.S. was using the war in Iraq to ignite global warfare. 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. In 2004, Aglaja Beyes-Corleis, who left the LaRouche movement in the early 1990s after being involved with it for 16 years, told the BBC that 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.
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 another 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 April Witt in The Washington Post, Duggan stood out because he was British and Jewish. Aglaja Beyes-Corleis told the BBC that Jewish members could be placed under particular pressure at meetings. A memo from the London Metropolitan Police submitted as evidence at Duggan's inquest said the Schiller Institute and LaRouche Youth Movement blamed the Jewish people for the Iraq war and other world problems; the memo said that "Jeremiah's lecture notes and bulletins showed the anti-Semitic nature of [the] 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 war during a seminar, he had stood up and said, "But I'm a Jew!" One participant said the others put him "through the wringer" because of it.
Witt writes that Duggan may also have been placed under pressure because he told the others he had gone to the Tavistock Clinic
Tavistock Clinic
The in London was founded in 1920 by Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller, a psychiatrist who developed psychological treatments for shell-shocked soldiers during and after the First World War. The clinic's first patient was, however, a child. Its clinical services were always, therefore, for both children...
as a child for a family counselling session when his parents divorced. The LaRouche movement believes the related Tavistock Institute
Tavistock Institute
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations is a British charity concerned with group behaviour and organisational behaviour. It was launched in 1946, when it separated from the Tavistock Clinic.-History of the Tavistock:...
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
Psychological manipulation
Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics. By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at the other's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative,...
. 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 Witt, LaRouche has been concerned since the 1970s that his members might be brainwashed by intelligence agencies to harm him. She writes that 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 attended at least one session, said later this referred to the 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."
Duggan's telephone calls
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 StädelStädel
The Städel, officially the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, is an art museum in Frankfurt am Main, with one of the most important collections in Germany....
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 did not 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 local time—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 Duggan were made from the same cell phone or directly after the call to Maya. Mrs. Duggan told the BBC that 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. She told the BBC he said "Mum, I'm in ... big trouble ... You know this Nouvelle Solidarité? .." He said, "I can't do this" ... I want out." The line went dead and he called back, reportedly saying, "Mum, I'm frightened." She said: "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. ..." He told her he was in 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, Drochon said. Drochon said he ran after him but was unable to catch up. He then told a Schiller Institute manager, Ortrun Cramer, that Duggan had left the house.
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 455Bundesstraße 455
Bundesstraße 455 is a German Bundesstraße in the federal state of Hesse. The route runs southwest from Schotten in Vogelsbergkreis to Mainz-Kastel, a borough of the Hessian capital city of Wiesbaden....
(B-455), a dual carriageway in the Wiesbaden suburb of Erbenheim
Erbenheim
Erbenheim is a borough of Wiesbaden, capital of the federal state of Hesse, Germany. It was incorporated into Wiesbaden on April 10, 1928. The population is around 9,000....
. 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 the British emergency services, and was advised to call her local police station in Colindale, Barnet. She told police 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.Erica Duggan obtained Drochon's cell phone number from Maya, and 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. Mrs. Duggan 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 Mrs. Duggan 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 am 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, bag, and 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."
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.
German investigation
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.Duggan's family appealed the decision to close the police investigation, but it was rejected by the Oberlandesgericht
Oberlandesgericht
The Oberlandesgericht is one of the 'ordinary courts' in Germany...
in Frankfurt in July 2006. Their appeal against that decision was rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany on 4 February 2010.
British postmortem, first 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 histopathologistHistopathology
Histopathology refers to the microscopic examination of tissue in order to study the manifestations of disease...
at Barnet General Hospital. Blood samples showed no trace of drugs or alcohol. Shove found serious head injuries, bruising on the backs of the arms and hands—which a second pathologist later called "defence wounds"—and blood in the lungs and stomach. He concluded that Duggan had died of head injuries. He did not give evidence at the inquest. Duggan's mother said she had a conversation with the pathologist in which he said he had not been told Duggan had been in a collision with a car, and that he did not believe this was the case, but he declined to sign a statement to that effect, according to Mrs. Duggan.
The first inquest was held on 6 and 7 November 2003. The court heard from a psychiatrist, Elizabeth Tylden
Elizabeth Tylden
Elizabeth "Betty" Tylden was a British psychiatrist who specialized in working with adult survivors of child abuse, and those affected by religious cults and the use of mind control techniques...
, who specialized in psychosis induced in cult members, that a severe stress reaction can be caused by a rapid change in a person's belief system. The court also heard that a London Metropolitan Police memo described the movement as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections." The coroner, Dr. William Dolman, ruled that Duggan had been "sucked into" an extreme political organization, and had received fatal head injuries when he ran into the road and was hit by two cars. He added: "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
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. 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 based on the photographs from the scene. He wrote that he did not believe the damage to either of the vehicles was caused by an impact with body. He wrote: "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." According to The Observer, Canning suggested Duggan may have died elsewhere and been "placed" at the scene of the accident.Second inquest
In light of the forensic reviews, Erica Duggan 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 motionEarly day motion
An Early Day Motion , in the Westminster system, is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by Members of Parliament for debate "on an early day" . Controversial EDMs are not signed by Government Ministers, PPS or the Speaker of the House of Commons and very few are debated on the floor...
requesting the same. The High Court ordered the new inquest in May 2010 and quashed the findings of the first. Lord Justice Elias said evidence not available during the first inquest pointed to the possibility that the crash was "stage managed" to look like an accident, and that foul play may have occurred. The court heard a claim that the movement may have believed Duggan was a spy.
The new inquest was opened and adjourned by coroner Andrew Walker
Andrew Walker (barrister)
Andrew Walker is an English barrister and coroner for Northern District of Greater London,. In June 2006 he was appointed on temporary contract as assistant deputy coroner in Oxfordshire, one of three temporary appointees to assist in reducing a backlog of inquests into the deaths of British...
at Barnet Coroners Court on 22 June 2010. The coroner ruled that the LaRouche organization be recognized as an interested party, and that the family's evidence would have to be disclosed to them. The Duggans' barrister, Neil Sheldon, said there were one or two documents the Duggans would argue could not be shared with the LaRouche movement to protect the identity of their source. The coroner said he would pass the evidence to the Metropolitan's Police serious crime directorate with a view to them conducting an investigation.
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 disorderObsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
, 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
Elizabeth Symons, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Elizabeth Conway Symons, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, PC is a British life peer and former General Secretary of the FDA Trade Union and a Minister of State...
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
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
, then the Vice-President of the United States, and Cheney's wife. In September 2007, the LaRouche Political Action Committee published a letter from the London Metropolitan Police, dated 14 July 2003, that it said was obtained under the British Freedom of Information Act, in which an 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 the BBC that under German law he could investigate further only if there existed concrete evidence of third-party involvement, and that there was 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. 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 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.Further reading
- The Justice for Jeremiah campaign, accessed 5 March 2010.
- "Facts of the Duggan Case", Executive Intelligence Review, LaRouche movement, accessed 5 March 2010.
- The Schiller Institute, accessed 5 March 2010.
- The LaRouche Youth Movement, accessed 5 March 2010.
- BBC Radio 4. Interview with Erica Duggan, 29 November 2004, accessed 5 March 2010.
- Beyes-Corleis, Aglaja. Verirrt: Mein Leben in einer radikalen Politorganisation. Herder, 1994. ISBN 3451042789
- Channel 4. "Lost Abroad: The Parents' Story", April 1, 2010.
- Lyndon, LaRouche. "A Crucial Slant on the David Kelly Case", Executive Intelligence Review, 5 February 2010, accessed 5 March 2010.
- LaRouche Political Action Committee. "INTEL UPDATE: British Press and Officials Caught Lying in Duggan Affair", 18 September 2007, accessed 7 January 2011.
- LaRouche Political Action Committee. "Update: German High Court Confirms Duggan Death a Suicide: Ruling Exposes British Lies Against LaRouche", 2 March 2010, accessed 7 January 2011.
- Lorscheid, Helmut and Müller, Leo. Deckname Schiller: Die Deutschen Patrioten des Lyndon LaRouche. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 1986. ISBN 3499159163