Meeting with PSB

My husband returned to Beijing on 14 December 2007. Three days later he was escorted by a Chinese-born German national (and employee at the German Embassy in Beijing) to the meeting set to finally view the film. When they arrived at the Public Security Bureau (PSB) this embassy employee translated from the Chinese of the government officials into German for my husband. Two videos were shown, not one, as we had expected, both merely a few seconds in duration.

The two films showed two different viewpoints. The officials stated that two cameras had been in place to capture this moment in history-one from one viewpoint the other offering a second perspective. To us, it was clear that these two viewpoints had been created specifically for this forced meeting and were not actual film footage taken on the sad night.

Permit me to give my reasons for this belief: First of all, about ten persons were gathered in the room when my husband and the German embassy official arrived for the showing. The first viewpoint depicted on the first sequence shown could not have been real as the camera in place did not face the direction that this perspective offered nor was it a camera that could swing to another perspective. It was fixed to the wall. Secondly, the person depicted in the film was not wearing the cap that we already knew that Bernhard had been wearing that night. This cap was amongst Bernhards final effects, not those left behind in his room but rather those found on his body at the time of his death. Bernhard was wearing his cap when he died. The person in the very brief film clip did not have Bernhard's cap, nor could he as it had been returned to his father! When recreating this film, the officials had no cap at hand to place on the actor's head. Perhaps they did not think we would notice? We know that Bernhard died in this cap. We also know that the surveillance camera of the nearby Kempinski Hotel showed him with it on!

We also know that the fire escape that Bernhard was suppose to have used that night was locked and secured by an iron padlock.

The film that had just been shown was very, very brief. After this presentation the Chinese officials showed a second, just as brief, film clip. Once more, we know that this was a recreation and not actual historic film of our son. The camera perspective shown on film had to be filmed by a hand held camera after the fact as there was no fixed camera with this viewpoint. Behind where the camera was supposed to be mounted is found nothing but green parkland! There is no building here to mount the camera that they claimed filmed this perspective. This second video quickly showed something falling to a specific place on the ground. (Note that on the next photograph the parked automobile on the right where this fall was suppose to have taken place)

This second video depicts a falling object (which they wished my husband to believe to be the body of our son). This object moves initially after this fall but then remains still. Shortly after the fall the film depicts the appearance of a dark substance which the officials claim to be a puddle of blood.

As we know, the employee of the university that admitted to my husband in November 2007 that he actually had identified Bernhard's body, even though he had not admitted this to him the year before when the met in December 2006, had assured my husband that Bernhard's face was unmarked by the fall. Everyone believed that such a fall would have cause serious injury to Bernhard's body, especially to his face and head, which did not happen. Even the Chinese university officials found this to be very odd. Once more at this meeting with the PSB my husband posed the question about the lack of visible injuries to Bernhard's face and head. They had a ready explanation: They said that he died from his fall but that since he jumped only from the fourth floor (the third floor in European architectural terminology but the fourth to Americans as well) that it was not high enough to do damage to his face or head.

They claimed that the short distance involved would not result in any such damage as they did that this short distance meant that he did not die instantly, thus the reason the object in the second film moved slightly for an instant. They told my husband that the university security guard found his body at six o'clock in the morning and that he was still breathing at that time. He was, accordingly, rushed to the hospital where he died of his injuries.

They pointed to the second film showed to reinforce the argument that the movement of the object in the video proved that he did not die instantly. We knew in advance that there was no way to know for certain where Bernhard could have fallen from but they insisted that it was from the fourth floor.

They had a ready answer for every question posed by my husband. They were very well rehearsed even when their concepts were clearly impossible to have occurred as they claim.

In response, they claim that they saw finger prints on the fourth floor fire escape to prove this belief but as they all along considered this to be a suicide they had no reason to check for finger prints at the time of Bernhard's death.

As they had no reason to check for finger prints in December 2006 and as any such prints would have disappeared a year later, December 2007, when they claim a second search proved their beliefs, how could human finger prints remain on an outdoor metal railing for twelve months and still be clearly identified as those of my son? It was immediately clear to us that this was yet another manipulation of the truth to suit their false claims.

The letter that the Chinese ambassador sent us in May 2007 stated that a time period of 16 minutes occurred between the moment that Bernhard began to climb the stairs (as they claim) and the time of his fall. It is totally unrealistic to believe that a healthy young man would take 16 minutes to climb only four flights of stairs. The officials wanted my husband to believe that Bernhard climbed to the railing in question, stood there for 15 minutes and then jumped on his own imitative.

Additionally, it must be remembered that we have never been informed of the official time of death of our son. They speak only about the time he was found dead. The death certificate clearly states that Bernhard was found dead. Nothing, not the time of death when it is said he was already dead or the certificate of death speaks to him still breathing and being taken to a hospital where he later died. All documents already provided us claim that Bernhard was already dead when he was found. But now, in these two 'official' (really falsified) films it is now claimed that he lived, continued to breathe, and had to be taken to the hospital where he later died.

The second film presented to my husband showed a great puddle of blood emanating from the body once it had fallen and yet the death certificate claimed that Bernhard died from acute traumatic hemorrhagic shock. According to the Chinese death certificate our son did not died of great blood lose as this film depicted. Bernhard's body showed absolutely no evidence of external injury according to the committed statement of the one who had identified him.

My son's clothes, the clothing he was wearing at the moment of his death, showed absolutely no signs of blood stains. They were clean! There could not have been any blood lose, let alone the great quantities of blood lost shown in the second video. How someone could have massive blood loss and have lain in this blood for hours and hours and yet his clothing has not one trace of blood anywhere? It is clear that the videos were fake and that they were produced just to show to my husband once the German government requested that they be shown. The persons creating this bogus film read about the blood loss and added rapid blood loss to his version of the events even though such blood loss would not have happened as instantly as depicted on film.

Furthermore, the film makers misread the death certificate. Bernhard indeed died of hemorrhagic shock but did not bleed out onto the street as they thought! His clean clothing proved this point to us. My husband repeatedly questions the Chinese officials during the showing of the films, wanting to know who this could be so. They never answered him. They could not say, despite my husband's repeated questioning, if my son had broken bones, which of his organs were damaged, and what amounts of blood loss caused his death.

My husband was relentless in his questioning and so finally they answered saying: “They had noticed some injuries on his head.” But how could this be so? Those that found him saw no injuries on his head. This means that he had not died from blood loss either as there was no evidence of this. By their own words, they admit head injury but the only place this could have occurred was at the back of the neck, an injury imposed on Bernhard before he was thrown to the ground below.

There was another item to address. When the Chinese returned my son's eyeglasses to my husband, he found that they had been very badly mangled. One of the lenses had fallen out, the frames were severely bent and the glasses were all but destroyed. The way they were smashed was not normal, certainly not normal in a fall such as the one claimed for Bernhard. But they were normal for one in a fight, destroyed by a strongman or men as they overtook my son. Even if he had fallen, Bernhard's eyeglasses would not have been mangled in this way. Perhaps, as we believe having seen them, the eyeglasses were trampled on many times by several men during a scuffle. Also, upon close examination it became clear that no blood could be found on these mangled eyeglasses.

The next point to consider is the existence of a door on ground level near to where Bernhard was said to have died. It serves as an emergency door. This is the doorway with the camera in question. We assumed from the beginning that this door was used for deliveries. We really gave it not further thought.

During the video presentation, one of the officials suddenly spoke about the interior of this building stating that nothing happened inside the emergency door, that there was no sign of any crime or mishap with others there and that this area could not be called into question. And yet, we had never before considered what lay behind this emergency door.

Suddenly, for my husband, and later for me, we understood! Bernhard had not fallen from the fire escape stairs. He had been taken to the interior of this building by the police or others where he was killed. His body was then carried out through this emergency door by them and laid in the street to present a false scene, the idea that he had climbed the exterior staircase and then leapt to his death. This is where his glasses had been forced off his head in a scuffle and where others had trampled them. They could have been destroyed when the police baton was used to subdue him.

My husband had walked through the building the year before. He noted a number of rooms on the ground level where meetings, classes and other events could have been held. Perhaps Bernhard had been at one such gathering and moments later was subdued, violently killed, and the carried through this emergency door out into the open to both be found and to suggest suicide.

Having finally come to realize all of the pieces of the puzzle, it is this scenario that rests in my heart. We believe we are correct in assuming it thusly.

This emergency exit is located in the area that can only be accessed through a gate, a gate that remains locked from the midnight hour until five o'clock in the morning. As we see it, the perpetrators of our son's assassination must have killed him after the midnight hour when no witnesses would have been nearby, because they would have been locked out of this area after that time.

We believe he was killed inside the building, carried outside to suggest suicide and to be easily found, and all of his personal items, especially the broken eyeglasses, were carried with him so as to be sure no history of what happened inside the building could be told later. We know that he was found at six o'clock in the morning.

We never heard of even an approximate time of death let alone one more exact. And so we believe that he died many hours before at a time closer to the midnight hour when others were locked out of this area. This explains to us the reason why his death certificate states that he was 'found dead' despite any other statement of the circumstances of this death, the death of a foreign born guest in China! Surely had our son died in the hospital as the officials stated firmly at the showing of the video, his death certificate would have list the time and the exact cause of death?

Other questions arose once we came to understand the real manner of our son's death:

Why did the Chinese simply not send us a copy of this video in Germany when asked?

Why did it take so many attempts to view it before they relented and why did it take an official diplomatic request from the German Embassy in Beijing to the Chinese Foreign Office before they agreed to our repeated requests?

Why did they deny my husband's request to view this film when he was in China earlier so that a return trip to Beijing would not be necessary?

Why did they forbid my husband's use of his own camera to film the video for me and others and why would they not give him a copy to bring home to me?

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