March 12, 2015 by Liz Fekete
In the latest twist at the NSU trial, the state premier of Hesse has been asked to take the witness stand.
Why is Volker Bouffier’s evidence important for the family of Halit Yozgat, the NSU’s ninth victim, as well as to the family of Jeremiah Duggan?
The trial of Beate Zschäpe and four co-defendants in the case of the National Socialist Underground (NSU, a German neo-Nazi cell which murdered at least ten people, mostly men of Turkish origin, between 2000 and 2007) has been ongoing at the Munich Higher Regional Court since May 2013.
The trial of Beate Zschäpe and four co-defendants in the case of the National Socialist Underground
Meanwhile, in London, the mother and father of Jeremiah Duggan, a young British-Jewish student who died in Germany in March 2003, are preparing for a new inquest into the circumstances of their son’s death twelve years ago.
On the face of it, the NSU trial has absolutely nothing to do with the case of Jeremiah Duggan. But there is a connection, one which lies not in the activities of the NSU cell itself, but in patterns of institutional behaviour within the German police, intelligence and prosecution services.
Jeremiah Duggan – the story so far
A full three-day inquest into the death of Jeremiah Duggan will take place at the North London Coroner’s Court from 19-21 May. From the outside, the reasons why the inquest will take place in London and not Wiesbaden are hard to grasp. But although the 22-year-old London-born student died in Hesse, there was no inquest into his death in Germany, nor even a post-mortem. It is for this reason that the Duggan family’s pursuit of evidence suggesting that his death might have been caused by foul play has been through the British inquest system and the British High Court (an inquest was held in 2003, but its verdict was later quashed and a new inquest opened and adjourned in 2010). read more