Rumsfeld sued for 'torture'
11/11/2006 09:16  - (SA)  

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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