33 thoughts on “Die Welt on Uwe Barschel’s Murder and Possible Mossad Connection – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Small error in the translation (not in the original): Cyclobarbital is a barbiturate; it is not diazepam, aka Valium.

      1. The translation consistently says “cyclobarbital (diazepam)”; the original doesn’t mention diazepam at all. I’d simply delete that latter word.

  2. 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?

    1. @ 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.

    2. 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.

  3. 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.

    1. 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….

  4. @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?

    1. 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.

  5. NATO had better get that missile defense system up and running to protect Europe from the psychopaths in Israel.

    1. 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

      1. P.P.S. EXCERPT FROM THE OBSERVER GUARDIAN, 09/21/03:

        …Without a ‘just, comprehensive and lasting’ peace which only America can bring to pass, Israel will remain at least as likely a candidate as Iran, and a far more enduring one, for the role of ‘nuclear-crazy’ state.
        Iran can never be threatened in its very existence. Israel can. Indeed, such a threat could even grow out of the current intifada. That, at least, is the pessimistic opinion of Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ‘If it went on much longer,’ he said, ‘the Israeli government [would] lose control of the people. In campaigns like this, the anti-terror forces lose, because they don’t win, and the rebels win by not losing. I regard a total Israeli defeat as unavoidable. That will mean the collapse of the Israeli state and society. We’ll destroy ourselves.’
        In this situation, he went on, more and more Israelis were coming to regard the ‘transfer’ of the Palestinians as the only salvation; resort to it was growing ‘more probable’ with each passing day. Sharon ‘wants to escalate the conflict and knows that nothing else will succeed’.
        But would the world permit such ethnic cleansing? ‘That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. 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. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.” I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.’

        SOURCE – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/21/israelandthepalestinians.bookextracts

  6. 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?

    1. his interpretation of the facts fits well with the methods described in the Ostrowsky-book.

      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.

      1. 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.

  7. 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…

    1. # 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.

      1. 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.

        1. 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?

          1. 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.

      2. 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!

      1. 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…

        1. 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.

          1. …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;-))

  8. 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…

    1. 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).

  9. 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.

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