BERLIN, Nov 30 (AFP) - An international legal team filed a criminal complaint in Germany Tuesday against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top US officials over the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq.
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association said they and four Iraqi citizens mistreated by US soldiers were seeking a probe by German federal prosecutors of leading US policymakers.
They said they had chosen Germany because of its Code of Crimes Against International Law, introduced in 2002, which grants German courts universal jurisdiction in cases involving war crimes or crimes against humanity.
It also makes military or civilian commanders who fail to prevent their subordinates from committing such acts liable.
"We filed these cases here because there is simply no other place to go," CCR vice president Peter Weiss said in a statement.
"It is clear that the US government is not willing to open an investigation into these allegations against these officials," he said, adding that the US Congress had failed to seriously investigate the abuses.
German attorney Wolfgang Kaleck, who filed the complaint, told reporters he was confident that "the prosecutors would come to the same conclusion" as the legal team and open an investigation.
"That could take years," he added.
The CCR said that while several US soldiers were facing court martial for the abuse and sexual humiliation of prisoners at the US-run Abu Ghraib detention center in Iraq, their superiors looked set to escape discipline.
The complaint names Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Brigadier General Janis L. Karpinski and other five military officers who served in Iraq.
Kaleck noted that Sanchez and three other officers named in the case were based in Germany.
"From Donald Rumsfeld on down, the political and military leaders in charge of Iraq policy must be investigated and held accountable," CCR president Michael Ratner said.
The CCR said that the four Iraqis it was representing had been victims of mistreatment including electric shock, severe beatings, sleep and food deprivation and sexual abuse while in US custody.
The lawyers finally rejected the case of a fifth Iraqi they had planned to represent because he had already filed a civil lawsuit in the United States.
11/30/2004 17:06 GMT - AFP