MPs call for new inquiries over Briton's death in Germany

Inquiries into the death of a young Briton in Germany after travelling to an event run by a far-right group must be reopened both here and abroad, a cross-party group of MPs said yesterday.

Amid growing unease over the case of Jeremiah Duggan in Wiesbaden in 2003, the MPs signed an early day motion in the Commons calling on ministers to reopen the British inquest into the 22-year-old's death. They want the government to pressure the German authorities to review the case there. The German view that Duggan committed suicide has already been rejected by a British inquest.

Duggan, a Jewish north Londoner who was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, travelled to Germany for an antiwar protest run by the Schiller Institute. He went to Wiesbaden with a group of young men selling the newspaper Nouvelle Solidarité, a French version of a newspaper published by the group's leader, Lyndon LaRouche, an American rightwing extremist condemned by leading Jewish organisations as an anti-semite.

LaRouche, a former US presidential candidate, served five years of a 15-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy in 1984.

Duggan knew nothing of the group's background until he heard anti-semitic comments being made at the conference itself.

The student, apparently terrified, rang his parents in London from Germany to say he was "in deep trouble". Hours later he was found dead, having been struck by three vehicles on a motorway.

The Schiller Institute has denied any involvement in his death or that any crime took place.

The MPs, from Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems, say they are concerned that Duggan's relatives have been frustrated in their attempts to obtain a full investigation. They add that "compelling forensic evidence published in March 2007 on the fourth anniversary of Duggan's death casts doubt on the current version of events".

Declaring that "further investigation of the case is now urgently required", they call on "the attorney general to liaise with his German counterpart as a matter of urgency to establish the truth".