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Rumsfeld sued for
'torture'
11/11/2006
09:16 - (SA)
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| Outgoing US
defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld tours the
Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas, after
announcing that he was leaving his post.
(Charlie Riedel,
AP) | | |
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Washington - An association of lawyers defending detainees
held at a United States naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
said on Friday that it would be filing suit against outgoing
US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his alleged role in
sanctioning torture.
The group said the Centre for Constitutional Rights "would
file a criminal complaint against former secretary of defence
Donald Rumsfeld in a German court" on November 14.
The complaint asks the German federal prosecutor to open an
investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that
will look into the responsibility of high-ranking US officials
for authorising war crimes in the context of the Bush
administration's war on terror.
Also charged in the complaint are former White House
counsel and current attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former
director of the Central Intelligence George Tenet, and other
high-ranking US officials.
'Substantial new evidence'
The complaint will be brought on behalf of 12 victims - 11
Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib prison and one
Guantanamo detainee - and is being filed by the Centre for
Constitutional Rights, the International Federation for Human
Rights, the Republican Attorneys' Association and others, all
represented by Berlin attorney Wolfgang Kaleck.
"The complaint is related to a 2004 complaint that was
dismissed, but the new complaint is filed with substantial new
evidence, new defendants and plaintiffs, a new German federal
prosecutor and, most important, under new circumstances that
include the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of
defence and the passage of the Military Commissions Act of
2006 in the US granting officials retroactive immunity from
prosecution for war crimes," said the centre in a statement.
Rumsfeld resigned on Wednesday, in the wake of a
congressional election in which Republicans lost control of
the US congress.
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