destruction Posted November 15 Report Share Posted November 15 Rumsfeld faces suit in Germany over alleged war crimes By Mark Landler The New York Times ord = Math.random() * 10000000000000000; document.write(''); if ((!document.images && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mozilla/2.') >= 0)|| navigator.userAgent.indexOf("WebTV") >= 0) {document.write('');} Emboldened by his resignation last week, lawyers on Tuesday asked a German prosecutor to investigate Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on allegations of war crimes, stemming from the treatment of prisoners held in military jails in Iraq and Cuba. The 220-page lawsuit, filed with the German federal prosecutor in Karlsruhe, names 11 other current and former American officials, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whom it claims either ordered the torture of prisoners or drafted laws that legitimated its use. The suit, filed by civil-rights legal groups on behalf of 12 detainees - 11 Iraqis and a Saudi - asserts that they were subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, withholding of food, and sexual humiliation. "Even if we never put Rumsfeld on trial in a German court, he will be harassed and publicly stamped as a torturer," said Wolfgang Kaleck, a Berlin attorney who filed the complaint, together with the Center for Constitutional Rights, an American group, and other legal organizations. Kaleck acknowledged that Germany would be reluctant to prosecute top U.S. officials. But he described a protracted legal procedure, during which he claimed that Rumsfeld might encounter trouble traveling to Germany or other European Union countries. Lawyers, he said, were also prepared to file complaints in Spain, Belgium, Argentina, and other countries. For Rumsfeld, who is soon to lose the legal protection of his cabinet post, the prospect of foreign lawsuits could be a lingering irritant, should he decide to travel overseas as a private citizen, legal experts said. A spokeswoman for the Pentagon, Cynthia Smith, declined to comment on the lawsuit because she had not seen it. The Pentagon denies torturing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad or in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The German prosecutor's office confirmed that it had received the document and said that it would begin reviewing it. This is the second time lawyers have asked German prosecutors to investigate Rumsfeld. Prosecutors turned down a request in February 2005, saying that German courts should not assert jurisdiction in a case that would be better handled by prosecutors in the United States. The lawyers contend that almost two years later, the United States has done little to investigate the role of senior Bush administration officials in the treatment of prisoners who are suspected terrorists. Moreover, they contend, the Military Commissions Act, passed by Congress, will make it more difficult to prosecute U.S. officials at home for alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions. The act also provides retroactive immunity dating to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "We've had two years of complete inaction by the Bush administration," said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, which is supporting the case. "They've been very good at prosecuting lower-level officials, but done nothing to investigate high-level officials." The lawsuit is ambitious, naming not just Rumsfeld and Gonzales, but also John Yoo and Jay Bybee, two former Justice Department lawyers who helped draft the Bush administration's legal arguments for treatment of suspected terrorists. It also names Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the military's former commander in Iraq. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who commanded Abu Ghraib and was punished for the abuses there, has offered to testify. While the first lawsuit focused on Abu Ghraib, this one includes as a plaintiff Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi who is believed by many to be the "20th hijacker." A lawyer for Qahtani, who is being held in Guantánamo, said he was subjected to abuse, authorized by Rumsfeld. The lawyers said they chose to file the suit in Germany for legal and political reasons. German law has the principle of universal jurisdiction, under which courts are entitled to prosecute people for war crimes, regardless of where they live or where the crimes were committed. Germany, despite its opposition to the war in Iraq, also has a web of connections to the U.S. military. Several military officials implicated in the mistreatment at Abu Ghraib were stationed at U.S. bases in Germany; some returned to Germany after their tours in Iraq. American air bases in Germany are used for military flights to and from Iraq. The German Parliament is investigating whether some of those flights included transfers of suspected terrorists to secret prisons - the so-called rendition program run by the Central Intelligence Agency. The lawsuit comes at an awkward time for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been trying to put German-American relations on a firmer footing after the mistrust generated by the Iraq war. Prosecuting high-level officials for war crimes in foreign countries has a patchy record, according to legal experts. A Spanish judge was unable to win the extradition of General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator, to face trial there for crimes against humanity. But Pinochet was held in London, and when he later returned to Chile, he found himself under legal siege. Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, has been sought for questioning by courts in several countries about American involvement with various Latin American dictatorships in the 1970s. "If I were Rumsfeld's travel agent, I would advise him to choose some other part of 'old Europe,'" said Detlev Vagts, emeritus professor of international law at Harvard Law School. "There is some danger out there." The timing of the lawsuit was not directly tied to Rumsfeld's resignation, according to Kaleck. The lawyers opted to wait until after the week after the elections in the United States to avoid being labeled political. Still, they said, Rumsfeld's exit gives the lawsuit an extra edge. "Rumsfeld now seems to be less protected than he was before," said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is paying for part of the legal campaign.http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/14/news/rumsfeld.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
destruction Posted November 16 Author Report Share Posted November 16 Cut and run....like you from cp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g420 Posted December 10 Report Share Posted December 10 LOL @ Germany talking about war crimes, oh the irony... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poccnr Posted January 24 Report Share Posted January 24 LOL @ Germany talking about war crimes, oh the irony... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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