As promised, two German-speaking readers have graciously translated two of the article Die Welt published today about the 1987 killing of Uwe Barschel in Geneva. I’m going to excerpt passage mainly from the news article, The Dead Man in Room 317, and a short passage from the toxicologist’s essay which bears specifically on the notion that a professional hit team had to have been involved in the killing.
I begin with a description of the hit as seen from Victor Ostovsky’s point of view. He is a disgruntled ex-Mossad agent turned rogue who wrote a tell-all book about his ex-employer. Respected journalist-observers of the agency like Ronen Bergman find Ostrovsky’s work to be equal parts truth and fiction and treat him with a grain of salt. Which doesn’t mean that Ostrovsky doesn’t offer useful and interesting information; just that you must corroborate Ostrovsky with independent analysis. That is why Brandenberger’s expert scientific opinion is worth considering in that regard:
The offer made him angry. “Money is no object,” the mysterious stranger had said, but Barschel didn’t want money. He wanted his reputation back. The politician was incensed. He had approached the man: He would have nothing further to do with him if didn’t deliver evidence that would exculpate Barschel. The stranger had said he just needed to fetch something and had left the hotel room. Now the former Prime Minister was sitting alone in his chair sipping Beaujolais, which the stranger had brought to the room. He was probably thinking: what had gone wrong in recent months. What mistakes he had committed. And that this odd stranger who seemed to know so much and had offered to help him might be able to put his life back together.
About an hour later, the hit team arrived.
There were five of them. When they opened the door to room 317 of the Geneva “Beau Rivage” Hotel, Barschel was already lying on the floor, passed out from sleeping pills which had been mixed into the wine. Professionally the assassins ended the life of the 43-year-old politician: They turned him over, head at the foot of the bed, and put a lubricated rubber tube in his mouth and delivered lethal doses of a combination of different drugs.
Then they stripped him of his trousers, two of them held his legs up while a third inserted a suppository with a strong sedative. It would increase the toxic effect of other substances. When they had put on his pants again and waited a while, they dragged their unconscious victim to the bathtub which had already been filled with ice water and put him in. A few minutes later, after experiencing violent spasms, Uwe Barschel was dead. The five killers did not leave until they had cleaned up the room, erasing any traces. This bore the signature of professionals from the Israeli secret service, the Mossad.
This is how former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky describes the night of November 10th and 11th 1987 in his book “The Other Side of Deception,” which was released in 1994. Ostrovsky says that Barschel was a threat to Israeli agents and this is why he was murdered. He claims to have heard this from other agent colleagues. But did Barschel really die this way?
…Now a scientist is calling for a re-assessment of Ostrovsky’s statements. Hans Brandenberger, a Swiss chemistry professor and former toxicology expert in the Barschel investigation, has determined after years of poring over the case that there are striking parallels between Ostrovsky’s description and the chemical results that he is publishing in the “Welt am Sonntag” today for the first time.
Brandenberger is a specialist in metabolic research: He has studied the breakdown of chemicals in the human body. When the body absorbs substances, they are converted to other substances according to complex rules, split it into parts or incorporated into new molecules. Studying which substances are created, where they appear in the body, and how long the processes take, among other things, permits scientists to make inferences about the timing and types of medication.
Brandenberger had already come to the conclusion in his 1994 toxicology report for the Swiss Justice Department that Uwe Barschel was administered the lethal agent cyclobarbital (diazepam) last – much later than other sedatives and hypnotics. Cyclobarbital (diazepam) was in fact found in high concentrations in Barschel’s stomach in its undegraded form. It could not be found in his bladder. His body had apparently just started to break down this substance. Other drugs in the urine were more concentrated than in the blood and stomach – thus they were already in the body longer and already in the process of elimination. Brandenberger’s conclusion: Barschel was unable to move when the lethal agent cyclobarbital (diazepam) entered his bloodstream. It would have been impossible to resist.
…Brandenberger thinks, on the basis of chemical findings, he can show not only how Barschel died but who killed him. This is based on a different drug which, years ago, was detected in Barschel’s urine but which was not thought to play a major role in the case: the potent, addictive sleep aid Noludar.
Brandenberger, who has researched the drug for years and published on it, writes that he had long been unable to explain why Noludar was not found in the bladder in its degraded (metabolized) form. The substance is usually converted very quickly in the body to various other substances. In addition, the researcher found it striking that Noludar was found in the urine but not in the stomach, as would have been expected for normal ingestion in the form of tablets.
…It now appears that “the strong hypnotic Noludar was almost certainly administered rectally just before onset of death” — well after the cyclobarbital (diazepam). Likely reason: the killers probably wanted to hedge against the possibility that Barschel was found before his death and his stomach pumped out. The Noludar would still remain in the body and would have significantly extended the toxic effects.
…From the chemical analysis there is evidence of a well-planned murder executed by several people: in addition to the hypothesis of a difficult rectal administration, Barschel had to be administered cyclobarbital (diazepam) in a defenseless state. In all likelihood a procedure involving a stomach tube or the like. Brandenberger adds, “The chemical results point to a murder which (…) because of its complexity must be assumed to be that of a professional team, not a single person.”
…This is the first time a scientifically based confirmation of the controversial Ostrovsky report has been presented. There are striking parallels between the [latter’s] Mossad book and his chemical investigation, according to Brandenberger. Ostrovsky describes a scenario that matches remarkably well with the analytical data. In other words, Brandenberger’s research points a finger at the Mossad. The researcher emphasizes that his conclusions (murder, stomach tube, delivery of drugs in shifts, finally a rectal delivery) had already been made before he knew of Ostrovsky’s book. If so, two sources have independently drawn pictures of the actual crime which are similar in the smallest of details.
…We have to ask the question: what was the motive? Why did the Israeli secret service or someone else kill Barschel? After a smear campaign against his SPD opponent Bjorn Engholm and a sound election defeat, the CDU politician stood on the brink of political disaster. As a state Prime Minister he had already resigned. In this situation how could he be dangerous to anyone?
Many say that, yes, precisely because Barschel was so badly damaged, he was a threat. In the Lübeck prosecutor’s investigative file there are a number of statements that Barschel was somehow involved in dubious arms deals with transit going through Schleswig-Holstein. Depending on who one asks, the Prime Minister was either aware of, or participated in dirty deals with Czechoslovakia, the Apartheid regime in South Africa, or in the Middle East. Opinion is divided on whether Barschel had only grudgingly tolerated business that his predecessor as Prime Minister, Gerhard Stoltenberg (CDU), is said to have set in motion, or whether he was the driving force itself. There is no evidence for Barschel’s involvement, but there were numerous accounts from witnesses. Many see this as the motive for his murder. Barschel had wanted to use his upcoming testimony on the Pfeiffer-Kieler scandal to blow the whistle on what was going on.
If you believe…Victor Ostrovsky, it really was about Israel’s secret business with a hostile Iran, under the name “Operation Hannibal.” Israel had secretly delivered parts for F4 Phantom fighter planes to Tehran. Iran wanted to be able to strike harder in its war on Iraq. In order to disguise the origin of the armor, the delicate deliveries were carried out, among other places, via Kiel. In addition, Israelis would be training Iranian pilots in flight simulators on German soil – again in Schleswig-Holstein.
Besides the Mossad, the German Federal Intelligence Service was involved in the business. When the matter became more widely known Barschel refused to go along with it and, after the Pfeiffer scandal, planned to make everything public. Mossad just couldn’t take the risk, says Ostrovsky.
Dr. Brandenberger’s essay on his toxicological theories involving the death/murder are highly technical reading. But this concluding passage is very important to consider:
After the investigation had been discontinued [and I had completed my own work]…I reviewed books concerned with the case and also came across the report by Victor Ostrovsky…This book details a scenario of murder of Uwe Barschel at the hands of a group of Mossad people.
In contrast to other declarations of confessions or speculations, Ostrovsky’s details on the application of the drugs are quite well-compatible with the analytical-chemical data: The initial anesthetization using wine with [drug] additives, then—an hour later or more—application of a deadly dosage of hypnotics using a gastric tube, followed by the rectal application of a suppository containing a strong sedative.
Ostrovsky describes a scenario that fits the analysis data remarkably well. The chemical findings indicate murder. In particular,
1. it is certain that the deadly dosage of cyclobarbital was applied later than other strongly sedative drugs, most likely at a stage of lost capability to act,
2. it is virtually certain that the strong hypnotic Noludar was applied rectally, briefly before death occurred, which is incompatible with the assumption of…suicide,
3. because of the complexity of the murderous event it has to be assumed that this was the work of a team of professionals, as opposed to a single person.
Thanks to my two translators, Michael Palmer and someone who wishes to retain anonymity.
Small error in the translation (not in the original): Cyclobarbital is a barbiturate; it is not diazepam, aka Valium.
Can you either here in the thread or in any e mail quote the English translation that is wrong & quote a corrected version so that I can edit the post to reflect what you’re proposing to correct.
The translation consistently says “cyclobarbital (diazepam)”; the original doesn’t mention diazepam at all. I’d simply delete that latter word.
The investigating (1994-1998) state prosecutor Heinrich Wille found evidence of a high-level meeting of several secret services in Geneva at this weekend. The WamS-article mentioned the names of Robert Gates, CIA, Oliver North, NSC, Dirk Stoffberg, a South African arms dealer, Peter Feuchtenberger, Stasi GDR, at least one member of the German BND, the famous German freelance-agent Werner Mauss. Most witnesses died in the meantime…
DIE WELT will continue tomorrow.The then retired state prosecutor Heinrich Wille will deliver his own book soon!
The only link to Mossad until now ist the Ostrovsky book.
Finally some personal questions from me:
Why should a killer-team, that undressed Barschel to deliver poison rectally, redress the man an laid him dressed in the bath in icy(?) water to simulate a suicide?
Wouldn’t have been the biochemical reaction faster if Barschel was laid in warm, or even hot water?
@ almabu
“Why should a killer-team, that undressed Barschel to deliver poison rectally, redress the man an laid him dressed in the bath in icy(?) water to simulate a suicide?
Wouldn’t have been the biochemical reaction faster if Barschel was laid in warm, or even hot water?”
One can only speculate. Dressing him would distract from the possibility of a rectal drug application, which apparently was successful, as the expertise does not mention that this possibility was even considered during autopsy.
One would think that a person who simply wants to go from here to there as painlessly as possible would prefer a warm bath in the nude over a cold bath with his pants on.
I don’t know (although as an MD I probably should) whether it is possible to determine the water temperature in retrospect, from signs on the body, after the water has already equilibrated to room temperature. If this is not possible, or if the murderers simply assumed that it would escape detection, they might have used this to mislead the investigators. As you say, metabolism, including post-mortem processes such as rigor mortis and its resolution, would happen faster at higher temperatures, and the investigators would have inferred a more recent time of death, based on the assumption that the water had been warm initially, not cold.
The only reason I can imagine for laying him in ice water is obscuring the time of his death. Whether essentially the same would’ve been achieved by hot water you’d have to ask a pathologist. Perhaps yes, as nobody would’ve known the water temperature at t=0 either way, so to speak.
A German court prohibited the publishing of his planned and written book about his experience with the Barschel case during his four years of investigation to state prosecutor Heinrich Wille. He believes in murder but was unable to proof it. So the case was finally closed in 1998. His successor Solicitor General Erhard Rex was said to believe in suicide instead…
http://www.welt.de/politik/article1111663/Buch_ueber_Barschels_Tod_bleibt_verboten.html
A note on the expertise by Brandenberger: Subsequent to translating it, I did a bit of digging into the scientific literature on the drugs in question. This confirmed my impression that most of his points are quite solidly argued, and his criticisms of the expertises by other forensic experts are justified.
The only point made by Brandenberger that I find doubtful concerns the detection of methyprylon (Noludar) in the urine but not the blood, which he presents as evidence for an application immediately before death occurred. It would seem that in this case the concentration in the blood should be higher than in the urine. In fact, Brandenberger himself makes the same argument regarding cyclobarbital, where he states that a higher concentration of this drug in the blood than in the urine indicates that it was still in the build-up phase.
However, the urine concentration of methypylon was reportedly very low. Blood is a much more complex material than urine, and it may well be that a similar amount of the drug in the blood escaped detection simply because it was hidden by the presence of some other compound present. Still, compared for example to the incredibly botched “analysis” of the same drug reportedly produced by the Munich lab, or to the Geneva chemist’s whole-sale refusal to look for drug metabolites in the first place, this is a minor detail.
Overall, his expertise is very clearly and logically presented, and it is somewhat distressing that the courts apparently have not been able to separate the wheat from the chaff in their appraisal of the forensic expertises.
It may be that some things are broken down by enzymes from dying blood cells, and that the urine in the bladder doesn’t change so much, post-mortem. So perhaps he means that the small but uncorrupted trace in the urine, indicates that the kidneys were only just beginning to pass that particular foreign substance to the bladder at the time that bloodflow ceased, and with it kidney function.
A vet doing a PM on a cat that he thinks might have been done in (unthinkable, but it happens) will stick a hypodermic needle straight in through the animal’s flank to the bladder, to get a “clean” urine sample, unexposed to oxygen that might break down what he’s looking for. I’m afraid I don’t know if human pathologists routinely use the same tricks.
I think a lot of the slightly odd things about this murder procedure were designed to allow as much as possible of what they administered, to be metabolized before the body ceased to be capable of that.
Doubtless, one day someone’s memoirs will tell us how Gareth Williams was killed. We’ll just have to see whether that tale is translated from from Russian or Hebrew. In his case, the evolution of the technique was to simply use drugs, or a stun gun, to incapacitate the victim and then confine him in a position where he’d slowly suffocate due to posture, having long since metabolized whatever it was that immobilized him.
The combination of similarities and differences from the German case, do rather suggest a thoughtful evolution of the same technique, rather than something completely different, or a straight copy. Anybody could COPY the technique….
@Michael Palmer. Thanks for the translation of WamS!
I find this article didn’t answer the question HOW and on behalf by WHOM Professor Brandenberger gets in contact with his patologic collegues in Geneva, Munich and Hamburg?
I’m not able to evaluate the problems regarding methods and conclusions he seems to have had with all of them the swiss an the germans?
As I understand, there was no new investigation made by him, just a revaluation of the old results on basis of computer printouts?
If there are any old probes left, after 23 years, they must be of doubtfull quality?
It seems that Brandenberger early on acted on behalf of the victim’s family. Later on, his opinion was also requested by the Luebeck judiciary.
It is true that Brandenberger himself performed only very few tests himself, which is due to the fact that he was given only very little sample material.
One should note that he determined early on that the cyclobarbital had been applied significantly later than the initial cocktail of drugs. This was corroborated by the re-evaluation of the raw data of the initial investigation at Geneva, as well as by subsequent analyses. Since the amount of cyclobarbital was apparently very large, the measured values should be well above any plausible experimental error.
The cyclobarbital findings alone tell us that Barschel did not ingest this stuff without “help”. Whether or not methyprylon was applied later on, rectally or not, and how much of it, does not change this fundamental conclusion.
NATO had better get that missile defense system up and running to protect Europe from the psychopaths in Israel.
P.S. FROM WIKIPEDIA: Martin Levi van Creveld (born 5 March 1946) is an Israeli military historian and theorist…
…In a September 2003 interview in Elsevier (Dutch weekly) on Israel and the dangers it faces from Iran, the Palestinians and world opinion van Creveld stated:
We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.[4]…
4. ^ Quoted in The Observer Guardian, The War Game, a controversial view of the current crisis in the Middle East, 21 September 2003; the original interview appeared in the Dutch weekly magazine: Elsevier, 2002, no. 17, p. 52-53 (April 27th, 2002).
SOURCE – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_van_Creveld
The Observer Guardian, The War Game – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/21/israelandthepalestinians.bookextracts
P.P.S. EXCERPT FROM THE OBSERVER GUARDIAN, 09/21/03:
SOURCE – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/21/israelandthepalestinians.bookextracts
On base of the information of the published article the linking of Uwe Barschels dead with Mossad is not justified. By the way, Professor Brandenberger himself did not do this! He just said, that his interpretation of the facts fits well with the methods described in the Ostrowsky-book. I think that the wet-affairs-department of every other secret service should have had the same medical knowledge of achieving the “desired” result. Probably most doctors can? In my opinion this story was sexed-up by the WELT because Mossad simply sounds sexier than BND or Stasi?
So, who did it? Cui bono…
I think the US an the Germans must have had at least the same interest to silence Uwe Barschel than the Israelis?
Can you come up w. any similarly elaborate assassinations by the Stasi or BND, because I can come up almost a score of Mossad hits over the yrs. including al Mabouh most recently. Brandenberger is saying that everything in his research conforms to Ostrovsky. No, he can’t identify the Mossad because he’s only a toxicologist. But he does tell you the hit was by a team of highly professional & organized killers. And Mossad does these sorts of things fairly regularly.
Both the GRU and KGB, as well as the new, improved FSB, have used elaborate poisons to murder people. However, most of the time, the elaborate nature of the sophisticated poison is designed to allow the killer as simple and unnoticeable task as possible.
The Stasi weren’t always trying to go unnoticed, of course, hence stuffing people into industrial furnaces and all their other endearing habits.
The hallmark of Mossad, seems to be elaborate procedure, involving several people and probably elaborate rehearsals, but nothing chemically spectacular and no distinctive murder weapon, although some very clever technology gets used on locks and alarms.
The DGSCE still seems to regard a 20lb limpet mine as adequately subtle.
No I can’t Richard! At exactly the same point the state prosecutor Wille closed his investigation of murder after four years (1994-1998) of fruitless digging.
A remarkable thing may be, that a speaker of the Israeli department of state said in a statement that no link to Mossad can be shown!
The timing of DIE WELT to print this story right now, can be a result of a “Halloween-spectacle” of the commercial German tv channel RTL, which belongs to the Bertelsmann Group, which presented at 2010/10/31 to the audience a séance with a spirit medium and the widdow of Uwe Barschel in the house of Barschel. The dead politican tells the spectators via his spirit medium, the 39 years old swiss woman Kim-Anne Jannes that he indeed has been murdered…
# almabu)
“The timing of DIE WELT to print this story right now, can be as result of a ‘Halloween-spectacle . . ”
I posted a very informative one-hour documentary from the French-speaking public Swiss television on the former file on this story. The documentary is from Oct 2010: Wille, Brandenberger etc are all in there, the Mossad-link as a possible explanation too. I guess a one-hour documentary on the public television gets things moving.
Thanks for this link! I’ve seen the first ten minutes so far, quite interesting stuff, but I need more time to watch AND understand the film because my French is even more limited than my English! As far as I know, this film has not been sent on german speaking tv until now? So, for the moment there was only the “Halloween-spectacle” to remind the audience of this open crime(?) case, but it was more considered a scandalous entertainment than a documentary to a murder…
Right now, I can’t see enough pressure in German policy to ask the state prosecutor to reopen this investigation.
After having seen the whole film, I really would appreciate to broadcast it in German language. I’m afraid, we will probably never see this case solved and all questions answered after 23 years of supressing information?
Yeah, I got caught up in the documentary too. Nearly a Hitchcock. You know, the Ghassan Kanafani-assassination has been ‘admitted’ only recently and it happened in 1972, but you may be right. The Barschel-case could join Kennedy, Oluf Palme etc. but I imagine some guy confessing on his ‘lit de mort’ – oh, I’ve seen too much ‘Godfather’, I guess.
Probably you are right?
Latest notice in WELT kompact:
The office of the district attorney in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein is – as a consequence of the published article in WELT AM SONNTAG – checking if there is enough evidence to reopen the Uwe-Barschel-case, which has been closed in 1998!
Remarkable? What’s remarkable about that?
I find three things remarkable: First that he even mentioned it, that he reacted as a government official on a headline at this stage. Second: What he said. He didn’t say, of course “Mossad was not involved”. He said that there is no base to link this case with Israel. Third: He played the ball back to the Germans: “It’s up to them…
I believe I read that the Israeli gov’t denied involvement quite some time ago. Or have you read a recent denial? I don’t know whether you are paraphrasing the Israeli official accurately in yr comment but strictly speaking what he says is true. There is currently no definitive evidentiary basis that links Israel or Mossad to the murder. But that’s a far cry from outright denial that Israel had anything to do with it. You see, those guys are clever.
…Israel hat am Montag entsprechende neue Spekulationen zurückgewiesen.
“Es gibt keine Basis, auf der man den Fall mit Israel in Verbindung bringen kann”, sagte Außenamtssprecher Yigal Palmor in Jerusalem. Es stehe Deutschland frei, den Fall neu aufzurollen. “Wir können den deutschen Behörden nicht sagen, was sie zu tun oder zu lassen haben”, so Palmor…
This identical text in German language has been published this Monday, 22th of November in Austrian News sites only!
I was not able to google and find any source in German press! Text based on news agencies APA/dpa.
“…You see, those guys are clever.”
Richard, I agree totally with you;-))
It may seem that I know German, but I don’t. So a translation would be really helpful if you can manage one.
From Die Presse.com, Austria in German language:
…Israel hat am Montag entsprechende neue Spekulationen zurückgewiesen.
“Es gibt keine Basis, auf der man den Fall mit Israel in Verbindung bringen kann”, sagte Außenamtssprecher Yigal Palmor in Jerusalem. Es stehe Deutschland frei, den Fall neu aufzurollen. “Wir können den deutschen Behörden nicht sagen, was sie zu tun oder zu lassen haben”, so Palmor…
http://diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/612386/Fall-Barschel_Israel-bestreitet-Ermordung-durch-Mossad-
http://derstandard.at/1289608475688/Israel-weist-Verantwortung-fuer-Barschel-Tod-zurueck
Sorry, I forgot the above mentioned links, Richard!
Translation of :
…Israel rejected corresponding new speculations on Monday.
“There is no base on which this case could be connected with Israel”, said Yigal Palmor, speaker of the office of foreign relations in Jerusalem. “Germany is free to reopen this case. We cannot say to the german authorities, what to do or not to do” said Palmor…
(By the way, I couldn’t find this statement on the website of the office of foreign relations of Israel).
FROM THE JERUSALEM POST, 11/24/10: …Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor issued a statement to the German news service DPA on Monday, saying “There’s no basis on which one could connect Israel to this case.”
In terms of a new German investigation, Palmor said, “It’s not up to us to tell the German authorities what they should do or not do.”…
SOURCE – http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=196542
P.S. Note that Palmor’s statement does not actually deny Israel’s involvement. It is almost exactly the same kind of gobbledygook Israel used in the wake of the Dubai assassination.
Barschel died in 1987. The supposed arms deals from his countrys soil seemed to have continued. The Iranians controlled even a small regional airport by “puppets”. After this fact was uncovered, they intended to sell it. Even NYT reported about this tiny airfield near Hamburg:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/15/world/nuclear-trail-special-report-vast-smuggling-network-feeds-iran-s-arms-program.html