[Media-watch] Rumsfeld & Tenet sued for US torture by human rights group - LATimes - 1/12/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-suit1dec01,1,344109.story?coll=la-headlines-world

 December 1, 2004

THE WORLD
German Suit Accuses U.S. of Condoning Iraq Torture

By Jeffrey Fleishman, Times Staff Writer


BERLIN - An American civil rights group filed a criminal complaint in 
Germany on Tuesday alleging Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other 
U.S. officials condoned torture and human rights violations at Abu Ghraib 
prison in Iraq.

The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and four former Iraqi 
prisoners filed a 170-page brief asking the German federal prosecutor to 
investigate Bush administration officials and senior military officers for 
war crimes and other offenses. Germany has a progressive law that allows its 
judicial officials to probe human rights abuses around the world.

"It's time to have a serious investigation of what they [U.S. officials] 
did," Michael Ratner, a lawyer and president of the center, said at a news 
conference in Berlin. He added that filing the complaint in Germany was a 
"last resort" because U.S. investigations and congressional committees had 
failed to hold the administration accountable for encouraging an environment 
for abuse.

The complaint, filed at the federal prosecutor's headquarters in the city of 
Karlsruhe, details the alleged mistreatment of four Iraqis by American 
soldiers and intelligence services. The men say they were beaten, given 
electric shocks, threatened with dogs and doused with cold water.

One of the former prisoners, Ahmed Shehab Ahmed, said soldiers injected his 
"genitalia with unknown drugs."

When asked why he was being tortured, another former detainee, Ali Shallal 
Abbas Uweissi, said an American woman told him "we have orders to treat you 
very badly in any way to force you to confess," according to the complaint.

Officials charged in the affidavit include Rumsfeld, former CIA Director 
George J. Tenet, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen A. 
Cambone, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was in charge of U.S. forces during 
the alleged violations, and six other military officers stationed in Iraq.

Memos and policy articulated by Rumsfeld and Tenet led to widespread and 
systematic abuses as the administration ignored the Geneva Convention and 
"redefined torture and redefined the laws of war," said Peter Weiss, vice 
president of the constitutional center. "Authorization was given from the 
highest level."

A U.S. investigation headed earlier this year by former Secretary of Defense 
James R. Schlesinger found that only prison guards and interrogators were 
"directly responsible" for violations. But it blamed senior Defense 
Department officials, including Rumsfeld, for poor leadership and failure to 
set parameters on interrogation techniques.

In Washington, the Pentagon denied that the abuses at Abu Ghraib reflected 
U.S. policy.

"The Department of Defense takes all allegations of detainee abuse very 
seriously. In fact, a number of comprehensive inquiries have been conducted 
to thoroughly explore this issue," a Pentagon spokesperson said. "Thus far, 
there have been eight major inquiries based on more than 950 interviews and 
15,000 pages of information. Three more reports still remain to be 
completed.

"Results show the actions depicted in the Abu Ghraib abuse photos were not 
the result of U.S. policy," the spokesperson said.

The complaint filed Tuesday is a novel legal maneuver. In 2002, Germany 
upgraded its code of crimes for international law. The move gave German 
prosecutors "universal jurisdiction" to investigate war crimes and human 
rights violations no matter where they occurred or where the alleged 
perpetrators live.

The law, however, is limited. It can take years to investigate a complaint, 
and prosecutors cannot compel the accused to travel to Germany to be 
questioned or tried.

Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm's office said Tuesday that it had received the 
complaint and was "looking into it." The legal action comes at a sensitive 
time in U.S.-German relations. Berlin and Washington are attempting to move 
beyond the strained atmosphere stemming from Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's 
opposition to the Iraq war. A move by Nehm's office to aggressively pursue 
the criminal complaint could lead to further rancor.

The complaint also arrives as Germans deal with their own abuse scandal: The 
German military acknowledged last month that recruits were sometimes given 
electric shocks as part of their training. This followed the disclosure that 
a teacher at an officers training academy condoned "torture, or the threat 
of torture, as legitimate" in the fight against terrorism.

Ratner, the center's president, said he hoped the complaint against 
administration officials would lead to an independent U.S. commission to 
investigate torture claims in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S. naval base at 
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.