KARLSRUHE, Germany - German federal prosecutors will be taking no action against US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over alleged war crimes, chief prosecutor Kay Nehm said Thursday. The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe had been asked by a US organization to indict Rumsfeld for war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. However Nehm said the complaint would not be pursued. Any criminal investigations were a matter for judicial authorities in the United States as Rumsfeld was a US citizen.
| Because the German authorities aren't nutters. |
There was also no indication that any German nationals were involved in the activities, which were the subject of the complaint, he said. The New York-based Center for So-Called Constitutional Rights had filed an action in December alleging violations of German legislation which outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused. It remains unclear whether Rumsfeld will attend a major security conference in Munich this weekend. The defence chief had made it know immediately after the emergence of the indictment probe that he would not attend unless the effort was quashed by German authorities. Rumsfeld last Thursday said he wasn't sure if he would attend the International Conference on Security Policy, adding that the possibility of German criminal action against him was "something that we have to take into consideration". |