GERMANY: HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS URGE GERMAN PROSECUTORS TO INVESTIGATE U.S. DEFENCE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD FOR ALLEGED WAR CRIMES

Record ID: 648006

  • Title: GERMANY: HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS URGE GERMAN PROSECUTORS TO INVESTIGATE U.S. DEFENCE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD FOR ALLEGED WAR CRIMES
  • Date: 20th November 2004
  • Summary: (W5) BERLIN, GERMANY (NOVEMBER 30, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE 0.09 2. PAN FROM MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (CCR) TO TRANSLATOR AND PETER WEISS, U.S. LAWYER 0.21 3. REPORTERS LISTENING 0.25 4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) PETER WEISS, U.S. LAWYER AND CCR VICE PRESIDENT SAYING: "This complaint deals particularly with the international law of human rights and war crimes. And what I am unhappy to say my government has done, it has redefined torture, it has redefined the laws of war, it has redefined the Geneva Convention." 0.51 5. REPORTER TAKING NOTES 0.56 6. (SOUNDBITE) (German) WOLFGANG KALECK, GERMAN LAWYER SAYING: "Not only do the United States not carry out any criminal investigations against superiors, the United States it appears right now, the Bush administration rewards those who participated in the war crimes in Abu Ghraib." 1.13 7. REPORTERS TAKING NOTES 1.18 8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, NEW YORK SAYING: "Our Congress has utterly failed in any investigatory capacity, our commissions that have investigated this have all been essentially appointed by the Pentagon and never going up the chain of command and our prosecutors are looking the other way. So we cannot bring these cases to our national courts. We don't have a system of filing criminal cases in our national courts as you do in Germany." 1.44 9. REPORTERS TAKING NOTES 1.48 10. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT CENTRE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, NEW YORK SAYING: "Even in the Schlesinger report you get a piece of paper like this (holds up paper) which is called Evolution of Interrogation Techniques - Guantanamo. These are techniques actually approved by our Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. And if you read them you get sickened by them. It says stuff like: exploiting individual phobias, e.g. dogs. So there you have our secretary of defence authorising the use of dogs. Of course the word phobias is particularly interesting because that has to do with the religious fact for Moslems that dogs are unclean." 2.31 11. REPORTERS TAKING NOTES 2.36 12. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, NEW YORK SAYING: "The answer is : I don't know where this will lead but certainly if there are war crimes that have been committed it should lead to significant jail sentences." 2.46 13. WIDE OF NEWS CONFERENCE 2.51 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 5th December 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA4NH7ZQ5RJFLP5ZSGCGOJA4TPI
  • Story Text: Human rights lawyers have urged German prosecutors
    on Tuesday to investigate U.S. Defence Secretary Donald
    Rumsfeld for alleged war crimes.


    In an unusual legal move, the Center for Constitutional
    Rights (CCR) on Tuesday (November 30) filed a
    criminal complaint with Germany's Federal Prosecutors
    along with four Iraqis who say they were tortured in the
    notorious Baghdad jail.

    The group charges Donald Rumsfeld, former CIA Director
    George Tenet, Defense Under-secretary Stephen Cambone and
    seven U.S. military officers, including Lt. General Ricardo
    Sanchez, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq.

    Photographs of smiling American soldiers tormenting
    naked detainees shocked the world when they emerged in
    April, prompting claims that policies adopted in President
    George W. Bush's war on terror had encouraged cruelty.

    To date, seven lower ranking military police and an
    intelligence soldier have been indicted and a top-level
    U.S. inquiry blamed the military chain of command for
    creating conditions that allowed the abuses to take place.

    Michael Ratner, the CCRs president, described
    Tuesday's filing of a complaint in Germany as a last resort.

    "Our Congress has utterly failed in any investigatory
    capacity, our commissions that have investigated this have
    all been essentially appointed by the Pentagon and never
    going up the chain of command and our prosecutors are
    looking the other way," he told reporters in Berlin.

    "So we can not bring these cases to our national
    courts," Ratner said.

    The group is taking advantage of a 2002 German law
    allowing prosecutions for human rights and war crimes
    regardless of where the acts took place or the
    nationalities of the perpetrators.

    CCR says it wants German prosecutors to investigate
    thoroughly, but has no firm expectation as to the outcome.

    "I don't know where this will lead but certainly if
    war crimes have been committed it should lead to
    significant jail sentences for people," he added.

    Peter Weiss, CCRs vice president, said "I am unhappy
    to say what my government has done, it has redefined
    torture, it has redefined the laws of war, it has redefined
    the Geneva Convention."
    German lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck said the bid to
    prosecute the 10 might affect their travel plans to avoid
    Germany, although three of the charged are based in the
    country.

    The U.S. embassy in Berlin declined to comment.


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