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<a href="http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=16014&name=Rumsfeld+scraps+Munich+visit+over+war+probe" eudora="autourl">http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=16014&name=Rumsfeld+scraps+Munich+visit+over+war+probe<br><br>
</a>Rumsfeld Scraps Munich Visit Over War Probe<br><br>
Munich, Germany -- Friday, January 21, 2005 -- (DPA) -- United
States<br>
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has cancelled a planned visit to
Munich,<br>
informing the German government via the US embassy that he will not
take<br>
part in a Security Conference there in February, conference head
Horst<br>
Teltschik said.<br><br>
This transpires after the New York-based Center for Constitutional
Rights<br>
(CCR) filed a complaint with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office
against<br>
Rumsfeld in December, accusing him of war crimes and torture in
connection<br>
with the notorious abuses and torture of detainees at Iraq's Abu
Ghraib<br>
prison. Rumsfeld made it known immediately after the complaint was
filed<br>
that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed
the<br>
legal action.<br><br>
It its written filing, the CCR alleges violations of German
legislation<br>
which outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide
independent<br>
of the place of crime or origin of the accused. The prosecutor's
office in<br>
Karlsruhe, Germany is reportedly examining the roughly 170-page complaint
to<br>
see if an investigation is warranted.<br><br>
The CCR further said that it and four Iraqis tortured in US custody
had<br>
filed a complaint with German authorities against Rumsfeld, former
CIA<br>
director George Tenet, and eight other senior military and civilian<br>
officials over abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq.<br><br>
The organization added that they had turned to German prosecutors
"as a<br>
court of last resort" because the US government "is unwilling
to open an<br>
independent investigation" and had "refused to join the
International<br>
Criminal Court".<br><br>
Several of the perpetrators they want investigated are stationed in
Germany,<br>
the CCR added.<br>
_ _ _<br><br>
CERJ Update: The text of the lawsuit filed by the CCR is available
on-line<br>
here:<br><br>
<a href="http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp" eudora="autourl">http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp<br><br>
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