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German police probe into
British student's death was 'inadequate'
By Daniel Foggo
(Filed: 09/11/2003)
German police files have exposed flaws in their own
investigation into the mysterious death of a British student.
Jeremiah Duggan, from Golders Green in north London, died last March
in Wiesbaden after allegedly running into the path of two
vehicles.
Mr Duggan, who was Jewish, had travelled to Germany
to attend what he thought was an anti-war conference before
discovering that the groups he had joined, the Schiller Institute
and its associated newspaper, Nouvelle Solidarité, were run by the
American Lyndon LaRouche, a convicted fraudster with a history of
anti-Semitism.
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Jeremiah Duggan |
The German police decided that his subsequent death
was suicide, but an inquest in London last week said that such a
verdict was "impossible".
The Telegraph has obtained a copy of the German
police's report into Mr Duggan's death. It reveals a number of
errors, assumptions and contradictions that suggest an inadequate
investigation into a suspicious death.
It also shows that the police took no official signed
statements from witnesses, failed to carry out an autopsy and
decided within hours that Mr Duggan had committed suicide by
throwing himself in front of the vehicles.
The report gives only a cursory account of the
version of events given to the police - one which conflicts with
that given by Mr Duggan's family. Evidence from witnesses is
recorded as brief, sometimes contradictory, notes.
The LaRouche political organisation, which includes
the Schiller Institute, is alleged to pressure young people to
embrace theories about a Jewish-American conspiracy to take over the
world.
Mr Duggan, 22, who had been studying at the Sorbonne
in Paris, discovered the group leader's anti-Semitic background
while in Germany and publicly declared his Jewish ethnicity. Mr
Duggan, known as Jerry to his family, fled on foot in the early
hours of March 27 from the property where he was staying with
members of the group.
At 4.20am he made a frantic call to his girlfriend,
Maya, in Paris, saying he was "under too much pressure" and wanted
to come home. Just over an hour later he called his mother.
He said: "Mum, I'm in big trouble. I'm frightened, I
want to see you now." She asked him where he was. As he began to
spell out the name of Wiesbaden, the line was cut off.
Forty-six minutes later he was dead, having been
knocked down on Wiesbaden's Berliner Strasse by a Peugeot car before
being run over and killed instantly by another vehicle.
After his call Mrs Duggan, 58, telephoned the British
police and, later that morning, she rang the mobile phone of
Sebastien Drochon, another of the Nouvelle Solidarité colleagues
whom her son had met for the first time at the conference.
Mr Drochon had already calledMaya hours earlier to
say that Mr Duggan had disappeared but when his mother rang he
handed the phone to Ortrun Kramer, the managing director of the
Schiller Institute, because he does not speak English.
Mrs Duggan told her how frightened her son had been,
at which point Ms Kramer said Nouvelle Solidarité was a "news
agency" and did not take responsibility for the actions of
individuals.
Three minutes later Mrs Duggan called back and Ms
Kramer told her: "Jeremiah had psychological problems." Mrs Duggan
denied her son had any such illness. Ms Kramer said she would ring
the hospitals to find out if he had been admitted.
Telephone records show that the phone call ended at
11.07am German time. About three minutes later, according to one
report entry, Ms Kramer, with Mr Drochon and another leading
activist, presented herself at the Wiesbaden police station with Mr
Duggan's passport, his bag and rucksack.
In an apparent contradiction, another reference
states that Ms Kramer actually reported to police by telephone. Mr
Duggan's father, Hugo, 60, said: "Because there are no witness
statements, it is impossible to know which is the true version of
events. It is disturbing, to say the least."
According to the police report, Ms Kramer said that
she had received a call on the morning of Mr Duggan's death from his
mother, who was concerned about him "since he had severe asthma and
was not getting in touch with her". Mrs Duggan later denied this,
saying that her son had not had asthma since childhood.
Elsewhere in the report, Mr Drochon recounted how he
had been staying in an apartment with Mr Duggan and another activist
named Jean-Adrien. He claimed that Mr Duggan phoned his girlfriend
and mother before going outside for a cigarette and then
inexplicably ran off at 5.15am.
Telephone records show, however, that he did not call
his mother until nine minutes later. It is unclear whether it is Mr
Drochon's memory or the police report's detailing of it that is
incorrect.
For Officer Schächer, of the Wiesbaden police, who
compiled the report, there was enough evidence to draw a conclusion
as to what happened. He wrote: "There is no doubt that Jeremiah
Duggan ran on to the road with the intention of committing suicide."
He added: "No concrete reason for his suicide could
be determined, although there are no suggestions as to the
involvement of another person. No post mortem is deemed necessary."
Mr Duggan's clothes were allowed to be destroyed and the file on the
case was closed.
Leslie Thomas, the Duggan family's barrister, said
last week that the refusal of Dr William Dolman, the Hornsey
coroner, to accept that Jeremiah's death was suicide "sends a clear
message to the German authorities that their investigation into the
sudden and unexpected death of Jeremiah Duggan is totally
inadequate. Jeremiah Duggan died in very suspicious circumstances.
These call for a full and proper investigation".
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