A student whose body was discovered on the side of a motorway in Germany may have been killed in a quarry or building site, an inquest heard.

Jeremiah Duggan, 22, of Golders Green, was found dead in Wiesbaden, Germany on March 27, 2003, after apparently being hit by two cars.

A student in Paris, he had been attending what he believed was a protest against the Iraq war – but was actually a youth event organised by far-right group LaRouche.

German police ruled Jeremiah had killed himself, but his mother, Erica Duggan, has always insisted her son’s death was not a suicide.

A three-day inquest opened at North London Coroner’s Court yesterday.

Forensic scientist Alan Bayle told the court today he believed the death was “stage managed” to look like a traffic accident.

He said: “There is no forensic evidence at all to say that body was in a collision with these two cars.

“It just did not look right. It did not take me long to look at these photographs to say where is the accident then? This is a crime scene with the amount of sand on the shoes. To me there is no way that is a traffic accident.

“The amount of damage to those vehicles was not done by a body. There is too much damage.”

Mr Bayle, who studied photographs of the scene, said the sand on Jeremiah’s shoes and the two cars suggested he was killed in a quarry or building site, and his body dumped on the road.  

Mr Bayle said: “If it was running in the road all the sand would have come off. His shoes were thick with sand. That is a very good indication he has not run there at all.”

The court also heard a written statement from Jeremiah’s girlfriend, Maya Villanueva, who received a phone call from him at 4.20am on the morning of his death.

She said: “The first thing he told me was he was under too much pressure. His voice was very small and weak. He then said they were doing experiments on people with computers.

“He told me he no longer knew what reality was. He wondered whether he had something serious wrong with him. I felt he needed reassurance.”

A statement from Alexis Weisberger, a student who attended the same La Rouche conference as Jeremiah, was also read out.

Mr Weisberger said Jeremiah had many questions about the group, but this changed during the conference.

He said: “You end up being so exhausted with no more power to think for yourself.”

The inquest continues.