My Response to letter of 26th July from the Schiller Institute.

:Re EDM Jeremiah Duggan.

 

The letter is written under the respectable-sounding name “Schiller Institute.”

 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

 

The Schiller Institute was founded as an international institute in July 1984 in Arlington, Virginia. It is part of the international movement—and now the international youth movement—founded and controlled by Lyndon LaRouche and his National Caucus of Labour Committees/International Caucus of Labor Committees. The German branch of the Schiller Institute has as its chairwoman LaRouche’s wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who is also the nominal founder.

 

The LaRouche network operates as a private Intelligence service and has news agencies with headquarters in Germany and the USA (Executive Intelligence Review magazine, Neue Solidaritaet newspaper in Germany and formerly the now-defunct New Federalist newspaper in the U.S.). The LaRouche Youth Movement, or LYM, as it is called, runs  cult-like training events (“cadre schools”) for young people. It is important to understand that this organization has various and changing front groups and subsidiary companies in many parts of the world—but not in the UK, where, until the death of my son, it was relatively unknown. There are no official LaRouche groups in the UK.

 

The LaRouches’ Schiller Institute has no connection with the Goethe Institute or the Schiller Institute in the UK.

 

Lyndon LaRouche is a convicted felon, having served five years of a 15-year prison sentence in the USA. In December 1988, LaRouche was convicted in U.S. Federal Court of conspiracy to commit fraud involving $30 millions in defaulted loans, 11 counts of mail fraud, and one count of conspiring to defraud the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. More than 1,000 people were said to have been defrauded. (It was also shown, as part of the background of the case, that at least 2,000 instances of credit card fraud had occurred, and evidence was produced that organization members sought to obstruct the investigation, including as fugitives from justice—for which crime three LaRouche followers served prison time in the 1990s).

 

Even though Lyndon LaRouche has always professed his innocence in this case, the judge made it clear that LaRouche was convicted not for his political beliefs but for the 13 counts of crimes for which he stood trial. Federal Judge Bryant clearly stated at the conclusion of the trial, as did the foreman of the jury, that LaRouche’s talk about being convicted for his political beliefs was (in the judge’s words) “arrant nonsense,” and that he and his associates were convicted for the crimes they had committed, not the ideas they held.

 

However, LaRouche continues to tell new recruits and the public that he was not guilty, was “framed and railroaded” into prison by the administration of President George H.W. Bush, and that people have tried to assassinate him because of his political views. He accused the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith of conspiring with the U.S. Federal government and the media to destroy him. With the support of a former SS Brigadier General, a former Frankfurt police chief, and other former Nazis, LaRouche made many pleas for an early release, and filed a Federal appeal. He was released from prison in January 1994, after serving only five years. In the year 2003, while still on probation, he was allowed to travel to Germany to address the European movement’s conference, attended by 500 people.   My son was informed at this conference that LaRouche had gone to prison for his political beliefs. 

 

THE LETTER:

 

The letter appears to come from the Schiller Institute, Wiesbaden, but I note that the status of the writer Bruce Director is unknown. I have been informed that Mr. Director is an American national, the head of the legal department of the American LaRouche organization (based in Leesburg, Virginia), and a member of the National Committee of the American LaRouche organization.

 

Lies

 

For the last four years, the LaRouche organizations have published lies about me and my late son, Jeremiah Duggan. The letter must be read with this in mind.

 

Even on the morning of my son’s death, Helga Zepp-LaRouche held a meeting at the LaRouche  headquarters in Wiesbaden,  describing my son  as the  enemy, a spy, and “brainwashed by the Tavistock clinic.” People were forbidden to talk to outsiders or even to each other about Jeremiah’s death. LaRouche publications claimed that my son was on drugs, was psychologically disturbed, and came with the “baggage” of a history of suicide attempts.

 

The present letter, in attempting to dispel the idea that there has been wrongdoing here, does not mention the fact that while he was in Wiesbaden for the LaRouche conference, Jeremiah rang me and his girlfriend in a cry for rescue.

 

The Second Paragraph

 

In the letter, Mr. Director writes that the LaRouche organization has “tremendous sympathy” with Jeremiah’s family—yet this is the first I have read this in any letter in the four and one-half years since Jeremiah’s death.

 

I have selected the most relevant quotes at the end of this letter to see what they have actually published about me and my son’s death, which amounts to lies and defamation:

 

Please consider their behaviour, which makes their present statements suspect:

 

  • They refused to let me speak with the people who were the last to be with my son. They have forbidden members to speak to me or to even speak to each other about Jeremiah’s death.
  • They sent the people who were last with my son out of the country so that I could not speak to them.
  • They misled the police by making false statements, including that my son was a patient of the Tavistock clinic and a suicide case.
  • They were in possession of my son’s passport; that is, it was not with the body. DNA tests prove that the passport was stained with his blood.
  • Their publications run into millions of copies carrying lies about my son and his death. Among other things, they state that I am a pawn manipulated by world statesmen—President Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tony Blair!
  • Anyone who takes up my case is woven into their conspiracy theories, whereby they claim that anyone taking up my case is part of a circle of evil people trying to destroy/ defame or even kill Lyndon LaRouche. This includes MPs, Luther Pendragon, my lawyers, and journalists in the UK, USA, Britain, and Germany.

 

The Third Paragraph

 

Bruce Director’s letter refers to the “robustness” of the German investigation into Jeremiah’s death and an “exhaustive four-year process.” But the only “investigating” which has been done since June 2003 has been carried out by Jeremiah’s family. If the Schiller Institute has nothing to hide, it will have nothing to fear from a full investigation.

 

I have employed experts to do the job that the German police thought unnecessary.  It is the view of our professionals that Jeremiah was not hit or run over by the cars mentioned in the German police report.  The British post mortem does not state death by traffic crash. We cannot draw conclusions about how Jeremiah died, as there has not been an investigation. This is why we are requesting a fresh inquest.  An important reason for holding a fresh investigation is to examine the dangers that may exist for British and Jewish students in Europe, and to try to ensure that future such deaths are avoided.

 

The Fourth Paragraph

 

The Schiller Institute letter refers to a “full police probe.” The German police never claimed to have carried out a full probe. They saw Jeremiah’s death as a suicide, and that fact was given as the reason that there was no need to investigate fully. As a result, the police did not obtain signed witness statements or signed verbal testimony; the drivers were allowed to leave the scene before the arrival of the investigating officer; Jeremiah’s clothes and shoes were destroyed despite the parents’ request for the same, and the “crash” was not investigated as a crime scene. No doctor was involved in examining the undressed body to assess the injuries, and no post mortem was performed to determine whether or not Jeremiah had died in a crash.

 

The Schiller Institute cannot have it both ways. They cannot argue on the one hand that the death was a suicide and did not require an investigation, and on the other hand, that there has been a “full police probe.” The Schiller Institute letter is wrong to claim that a second inquest would prolong an “exhaustive four-year process.” The case was closed within an hour of Jeremiah’s death. The past five years have been exhausting for the family, who have had to conduct their own investigations at great emotional and financial cost. There was no exhaustive process carried out by any police offices.

 


The Fifth Paragraph

 

It is correct that the Hessen Oberlandesgericht and the General State Attorney upheld the decision by the Wiesbaden authorities not to re-open investigations. No request was made by the British for them to do so. At the same time, the British post mortem report, which was not a full forensic study, makes no mention of death by traffic accident.  Two years later I met with the British pathologist who signed the post mortem form and after his reading of his own report, he said that my son was severely beaten around the head and not hit by cars. The expert enquiries which produced two pathology reports stating that the death was not by traffic crash confirm the British pathologist’s remark that my son was severely beaten about the head.

 

The Sixth Paragraph

 

The “no issues” to which the letter refers are based on a comment by the Coroner in a private letter to the British authorities, which does not form part of the verdict. This comment was based upon all that was known at the time. It has since emerged that although a doctor tested for signs of life and signed the death certificate, in Germany she was not required to examine the body to establish whether or not the injuries were caused by being hit or by being run over.

 

 

The Seventh Paragraph

 

When Bruce Director writes in the letter that the British Coroner states that he agrees with the German authorities’ view that there is “no third- party involvement,” Mr. Director mistakes the purposes of the British inquest system. A British inquest cannot make verdicts to establish culpability.

 

At the British Inquest, the Coroner acknowledged that he had to do the best with what was available to him at the time, and that this was insufficient to give the usual kind of verdict. He gave a narrative verdict presuming that a full investigation had taken place. He did not even know at the time whether witness statements had been taken. The deficiencies of the first British Inquest form the reason that we apply for a fresh inquest.

 

The Eighth Paragraph

 

As for the case being so well established—well, this is simply untrue. Mr. Director’s letter fails to mention that the Inquest Court discounted suicide and that the verdict stated that prior to Jeremiah’s death he was in a state of terror. There has never been any investigation of what caused this terror .This makes the LaRouche falsehoods about Jeremiah being on drugs, and psychologically sick, a contradiction of the findings of the British Inquest. It is alarming that the Schiller Institute, whose self-assigned duties include the training of young people, show no concern about answering the question: “Why did Jeremiah die?”  For a young man to lose his life in such shocking circumstances while attending one of their cadre schools raises serious questions about public safety in the Schiller Institute and why at the time the Institute totally disclaimed any responsibility for, knowledge of, or sympathy for what happened to Jeremiah. 

 

The Eighth Paragraph

 

The Schiller Institute letter describes our request for an investigation as based on inaccurate and outlandish ideas, but it may be useful to consider how over the last 30 years the Institute’s mastery of convoluted and outlandish speculations shows them to be the masters. Their conspiracy theories about the British government, the Queen, and the Jews are not a joke and mask a most pernicious form of anti-Semitism.

 

The Eighth Paragraph

 

The Media. There has been a court case in the USA that established that it is fair comment to call Lyndon LaRouche a “small-time Hitler.”   I have received many letters that tell of fear-mongering, exploitation, and subjugation inside the LaRouche organization.  The fact that only the braver media are able to write about this merely shows how the Schiller Institute have managed until very recently to avoid exposure.

 

For nearly five years I have tried to ignore the hurtful slander, the lies, and the defamation about me and my son—which from the beginning has had the effect of perverting the course of justice in Germany. I still do not know why the manager of the Schiller Institute had my son’s passport. I still do not know where my son made that last phone call, shortly before he was killed. I still do not know why they so frightened him that he wanted me to rescue him. I still do not know why the Schiller Institute forbade the people last with my son to speak to me. They have offered to meet with the MPs to explain what happened—why has this offer never been made to the family? We are the ones that lost our son.  I am portrayed by them as part of a group they label “locusts” and “slime mould,” a group which they claim has the intention to harm and attack LaRouche.

 

It is my son who is dead, and it is Jeremiah’s family that requires consideration, true understanding, and most of all, Justice.

 

If the Schiller Institute’s claim that they had no involvement in Jerry’s death had merit, you would have thought that, far from seeking to stop a full investigation, the Institute would be pledging their co-operation and would welcome an opportunity to address the numerous outstanding questions relating to this case.

 

 

 

Erica Duggan  August 2007