By Anna Pukas

AT 4.24AM on Thursday, March 27, 2003, the phone rang in Erica Duggan's North London home. It was her 22-year-old son, Jeremiah. "Mum, Fm in deep trouble. You know this Nouvelle Solidarité? I want out, I can't do this, it's too much for me." Erica tried to reassure him but the line went dead. Seconds later, he rang again. "I’m frightened, Mum, I need to see you now!" he shouted. Alarmed,- Erica asked Jeremiah where he was. Wiesbaden, he replied. Spelling it out he got as far as B before the line cut again. Those were the last words Erica ever heard from her only son.

Almost 12 hours later, officers from a North London police station carne to tell her Jeremiah had committed suicide. But too many questions lay unanswered - why was he in Germany, what was he so scared of and who was he trying to escape from? It's only now, after 18 months of tirelessly pursuing the authorities and those who knew her son, that she is on the verge of an unlikely victory - forcing the German courts to reopen Jeremiah's case to discover how her son really died.

What Erica hopes will be heard is how her Jewish son had become involved in a sinister, far Right-wing political movement, headed by a renowned Holocaust denier. Exposing their workings and why they recruited her son will, she hopes, help to answer the riddle of Jeremiah's final hours.

He was dead within 45 minutes of those panic-stricken phone calls to his mum. At around 6am, Jeremiah had apparently run into the path of on-coming traffic on the Berlinerstrasse, the main thorough-fare in and out of Wiesbaden.

The German police immediately declared his death suicide. However, they took no statements from any drivers and did not search for witnesses. The British police concurred with their German colleagues, though they were shocked at how little questioning had been done.

After heavy lobbying from Erica, a British inquest rejected the suicide conclusion last year. Indeed, the coroner declared Jeremiah had been "in a state of terror" before he died. Addressing Erica, the coroner said: "Maybe you are not the only one in this court whose head is whirling with the evidence we have heard. I wonder if we ali have reason to be frightened."

Now Erica, a retired teacher, is on the brink of compelling the German authorities to do what they should have done in the first piace - conduci a proper investigation. So far, her persistence has cost her £30,000 -virtually ali the proceeds of selling her home in Sussex. But through a new hearing she hopes to cast light on the shadowv cult from which. She is convinced, her son was trying to flee. "Sometimes I wonder if l'm just mad to go on," she says. "But you can't have a son get killed without anyone bothering to investigate why."

From a cramped bedroom in her parents' house in Golders Green, Erica has traced experts in the cult, including former members and their families. It goes by different names in different countries. In France, where Jeremiah was living, it is known as Solidarité et Progres - a politicai party which fielded candi-dates in this year's European parlia-mentary elections.

Its newsoaoer. Nouvelle Solidarité. is the name Jeremiah blurted out in that last, frantic phone cali. In Germany, it's the Schiller Institute - a group that had organised a confer-ence Jeremiah attended just six days before his death. The cult's "parent" is the LaRouche Organisation, founded by American Lyndon LaRouche - a virulent anti-Semite and convicted fraudster - and his German-born wife Helga.

Alarm bells began ringing for Erica when she and Hugo, Jeremiah's father, travelled to Wiesbaden the day after his death. "The police said Sebastien Drochon, a young man who had travelled and stayed with Jeremiah, had already left," says Erica. "He was the last person to see my son alive, yet the police were not going to question him."

Jeremiah, also known as Jerry, was the youngest of Erica and Hugo Duggan's three cnildren (they also have two daughters). The Duggans divorced when Jerry was seven. Though he was only half-Jewish -Erica, 59, is the daughter of a German-Jewish father and English mother while Hugo, 60, is Irish Catholic - Jeremiah attended synagogue, had visited Israel twice and was involved with a Jewish youth movement.

Since 2001, he had been studying French at the British Institute in Paris and the following year had begun an English degree at the Sorbonne. He lived in a studio fiat and fell in love with Maya, a music student. "He loved everything Paris had to offer in its culture. He was idealistic, interested in eveiything. Jeremiah just ran at life," says Erica. Jeremiah phoned home regularly and in January last year he told his mother that he had met a man in his mid-30s named Benoit Chalifoux, who sold him a newspaper called Nouvelle Solidarité. "Jerry said he was teaching him about politics. He admired Benoit and said he was learning about an organisation which had the solution to all the world's problems. It was Chalifoux who suggested Jeremiah attend the Schiller Institute conference in Wiesbaden, a town near Frankfurt. It coincided with the start of the war in Iraq, which Jeremiah opposed. But after the conference he phoned Maya to tell her he would be staying for a few more days.

VIGIL: Erica Duggan cradles a plcture

of her only son Jeremlah, who dled In

mysterlous clrcumstances In Germany

after becomlng Involved wtth a cult

PROPAGANDA: Pamphlet by the

LaRouche Organisation attacking US

vice-president Dick Cheney

Maya (we will not reveal her surname as she has received threats) later told the inquest: "He said he had learnt about some very serious things happening. He said it was really important for him to stay. Then he was very solemn and said: 'I know now more than ever that I love you.' It seemed strange because it was not in his nature to keep saying that."

Maya next heard from Jeremiah on March 27, at 1.20am. In a brief cali, he sounded terrified - saying he was under too much pressure. Six hours later - an hour after Jeremiah had been declared dead - Maya received a cali from Drochon. He asked if she had heard from Jeremiah because he had run off in a disturbed state the night before. Back in London, Erica contacted Scotland Yard after she learned of her son's death. "From what Jerry had said, I thought he was being forced into acts of violence. But the police just said Germany was noth-ing to do with them."

From Maya, Erica learned of Drochon's cali and rang him. The 25-year-old passed the phone to the manager of the Schiller Institute, a woman named Ortrum Cramer, who told her they "were not responsible for the actions of individual members". The next day Erica and Hugo flew to Germany, where they met Cramer and lecturer Jonathan Tennenbaum. The latter said Jeremiah was troubled by aspects of the lectures relating to Jews and had stood up at one point to declare he was Jewish. The Duggans also learned Cramer had told the police that Jeremiah had psychological problems, something his parents vehemently deny.

"The police took it ali at face value," says Erica, "and said the Schiller Institute is a respected organisation." The Duggans wanted to visit Jeremiah's lodgings to check for clues but Cramer prevented them, saying that the home's owner, Rainer Apel, knew nothing. Erica later discovered that Apel was in fact a LaRouche "director of intelligence".

The LaRouche Organisation calls itself a political movement - Lyndon LaRouche, 82, has even run for president in the US. It blames the world's problems on everyone from Henry Kissinger to US vice-president Dick Cheney. LaRouche started out as a Left-winger but by the Seventies was producing anti-Semitic literature and questioning the Holocaust.

Over the past decade, he has poured a fortune into recruiting the young and impressionable with familiar cult hallmarks of brainwashing and manipulation. One of its chief recruiters is Chalifoux, the man who so impressed Jeremiah.

Erica made repeated attempts to contact Chalifoux. "Finally, I had a proper conversation with him and told him he had betrayed Jeremiah. He expressed no sympathy and warned that if I called again I would be charged with harassment." She believes Jeremiah did indeed "have problems" with what he was hearing at the conference - and they led to his death.

"According to LaRouche, the Jews are responsible for all the world's ills, including the Iraq war, but they also recruit Jews in order not to appear anti-Semitic," she says.

"They were trying to recruit Jeremiah but he was questioning them - that was his nature. I believe he was trying to flag a car down on that road to get help. My son didn't run into speeding traffic to get himself killed. He was terrified. He was running from something."

On Wednesday, what would have been his 24th birthday, his mother will launch a website to continue the search for the truth behind her son's death and to expose the sinister dealings of the LaRouche cult. She will also hope to raise money to help her fulfill those quests.

"I've got nothing left except fearlessness now. I have banged on doors and shouted. I've even demanded an audience with the Queen. I know my son is gone but I'll keep on banging and shouting until I know why."

• Donations can be sent to

The Jeremiah Duggan Memorial Fund,

BM Jerry,

London WC1N 3XX,

or visit www.justiceforjeremiah.com