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| Jeremiah had been in Paris, where he was studying for two degrees at the Sorbonne and at the British Institute, when he decided to attend what he believed was an anti-war conference in Wiesbaden to protest the American invasion of Iraq. He travelled to Germany on March 21, 2003 with Benoit Chalifoux, who edited the French edition of the Schiller Institute newspaper. Jeremiah first met Chalifoux after buying a Schiller Institute newspaper in the street outside his university. Jeremiah had told his mother that the institute was "very extreme," but she told the inquest he believed it had "solutions to problems he was worried about." | Jeremiah had been in Paris, where he was studying for two degrees at the Sorbonne and at the British Institute, when he decided to attend what he believed was an anti-war conference in Wiesbaden to protest the American invasion of Iraq. He travelled to Germany on March 21, 2003 with Benoit Chalifoux, who edited the French edition of the Schiller Institute newspaper. Jeremiah first met Chalifoux after buying a Schiller Institute newspaper in the street outside his university. Jeremiah had told his mother that the institute was "very extreme," but she told the inquest he believed it had "solutions to problems he was worried about." | ||
| Among the speakers at the meeting was Lyndon LaRouche, who has been condemned by Jewish organizations, including the ] of ], as an anti-Semite. LaRouche |
Among the speakers at the meeting was Lyndon LaRouche, who has been condemned by Jewish organizations, including the ] of ], as an anti-Semite. LaRouche was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for conspiracy, mail fraud and tax code violations in 1988, and was released after serving five years. | ||
| Mr Duggan said in telephone calls to his parents and to his French girlfriend, Maya Villanueva, that he found the lectures sti | Mr Duggan said in telephone calls to his parents and to his French girlfriend, Maya Villanueva, that he found the lectures sti | ||
Revision as of 03:30, 14 November 2004
Jeremiah Duggan, a British Jew, was 22 years old when he died on March 27, 2003 in Wiesbaden, Germany after running in front of cars on the high-speed German autobahn, apparently deliberately.
Jeremiah had just attended a meeting of the far-right Schiller Institute, part of the Lyndon LaRouche organization, when he hurled himself in front of several fast-moving vehicles. The meeting was attended by American presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche himself.
Wiesbaden is believed to be the European center of the LaRouche network and the controversial LaRouche Youth Movement, which was formed in 1999.
After leaving the LaRouche meeting, and shortly before his death, Jeremiah telephoned his mother in England to tell her: "I am in deep trouble." His mother says he sounded terrified. Then the line went dead. Forty-five minutes later, Jeremiah ran out onto the autobahn and was killed.
The German authorities initially pronounced his death a suicide, but a subsequent British inquest held in Hornsey, north London, concluded there was nothing in the German report, and nothing in Jeremiah's background, that suggested suicide. Jeremiah had no history of mental illness, the court heard. The inquest also ruled that, according to eyewitnesses, Jeremiah was in a "state of terror" when he died.
The coroner, Dr. William Dolman, reached his conclusion after studying evidence presented by Jeremiah's mother, Erica Duggan, a retired school teacher living in Golders Green, London, who has conducted an 18-month investigation into her son's death.
In court, Mrs. Duggan described the Schiller Institute as a "dangerous and political cult with strong anti-Semitic tendencies, known to have a history of intimidation and terror tactics." The court heard that the German police (BKA) investigation had relied on statements made to them by members of the Schiller Institute, many of which had turned out to be untrue.
Mrs. Duggan believes her son was a victim of mind-control techniques used by cults to snare people into joining them. She is being supported by the British Foreign Office in her quest for a new German investigation. Baroness Symons, head of Consular Services at the Foreign Office has helped Mrs. Duggan launch the Justice for Jeremiah campaign and website. Nikolas Becker, a Berlin-based lawyer who represented former East German Communist leader Erich Honecker, has decided to represent the Duggan family in their efforts to have the German suicide verdict overturned.
Mr. Becker told a British newspaper: "There is enough evidence was probably in a hopeless psychotic situation 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."
The LaRouche organization is regarded by many as an extremist, anti-Semitic cult. Erica Duggan has told reporters that, when German police broke the news of her son's death, they said: "Go nowhere near these people. They are dangerous."
A Scotland Yard report describes the LaRouche Organization as "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."
LaRouchies, as they are known to American journalists, believe that the British royal family is involved in the international drug trade; that M16 and Prince Philip were involved in the death of Princess Diana; and that rogue elements within the U.S. military were involved in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Jeremiah had been in Paris, where he was studying for two degrees at the Sorbonne and at the British Institute, when he decided to attend what he believed was an anti-war conference in Wiesbaden to protest the American invasion of Iraq. He travelled to Germany on March 21, 2003 with Benoit Chalifoux, who edited the French edition of the Schiller Institute newspaper. Jeremiah first met Chalifoux after buying a Schiller Institute newspaper in the street outside his university. Jeremiah had told his mother that the institute was "very extreme," but she told the inquest he believed it had "solutions to problems he was worried about."
Among the speakers at the meeting was Lyndon LaRouche, who has been condemned by Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, as an anti-Semite. LaRouche was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for conspiracy, mail fraud and tax code violations in 1988, and was released after serving five years.
Mr Duggan said in telephone calls to his parents and to his French girlfriend, Maya Villanueva, that he found the lectures sti mulating. However, he is known to have challenged anti-Semitic statements and he told the group he was Jewish.
After six days at the conference, he telephoned his mother at four o'clock in the morning from an apartment he was sharing with other visitors to the conference, and said: "Mum, I am deep trouble. I want out." His mother said he was speaking quietly, as though afraid of being overheard. The line went dead. He called back saying, "I am frightened." Then he said, very loudly, "I want to see you now," and started to spell out the name of the town he was in. At that point, the line went dead again.
Forty-five minutes later, he ran out onto an autobahn five kilometers from the apartment he had telephoned from, and was killed. Based on the time it took for him to reach the road, and the fact that he appeared to have no vehicle, police believe he ran all the way.
The LaRouche organization strongly denies involvement in Jeremiah's death. In a June 2005, 2004 article in the organization's Executive Intelligence Review, Larouche's so-called Director of Counter-Intelligence, Jeffrey Steinberg, writes that Jeremiah had told his room-mates at the conference that he had been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), an ilness that Steinberg alleges can induce schizophrenic behavior, including paranoia.
Steinberg writes that Jeremiah had begun to show signs of emotional stress the day before his suicide and had fled from the apartment where he was staying at 3:30 in the morning. When a LaRouche Youth Movement organizer telephoned Jeremiah's girlfriend in Paris to ask whether she had heard from him, she allegedly asked: "Is there a river nearby?" Steinberg claims that Erica Duggan has acknowledged to reporters that Jeremiah, her divorced husband and herself attended group counseling sessions at the Tavistock Clinic in London when Jeremiah was seven years old.
A Guardian article on Jeremiah Duggan's inquest
An Observer article on Jeremiah Duggan
The Justice for Jeremiah website
Information about LaRouche on the Cults on Campus website
BBC news article on Jeremiah Duggan's death
Website of the Schiller Institute
Website of the LaRouche publication Executive Intelligence Review