Action Alert!
Call on the German Federal Prosecutor to Investigate Rumsfeld and Other U.S. Officials for War Crimes at Abu Ghraib
The Center for Constitutional Rights and four Iraqis who were tortured in U.S. custody filed a complaint on November 30 with the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office against high ranking United States civilian and military commanders over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere in Iraq.
We are asking the German prosecutor to launch an investigation because the U.S. government is unwilling to open an independent investigation into the responsibility of these officials for war crimes and the U.S. has refused to join the International Criminal Court. CCR and the Iraqi victims brought this complaint to Germany as a court of last resort. Several of the defendants are stationed in Germany.
The Pentagon and the U.S. government are taking this suit very seriously. According to the Deutsche Press Agency, Donald Rumsfeld has warned Germany that he will not attend an upcoming security conference in Munich if there is any indication of an investigation going forward, and Chief Pentagon Spokesman Larry Di Rita, calling the complaint “frivolous,” said that he raised the case with the State Department: "State is engaged in this. Obviously, it's something that we're focused on and very concerned with…” Please encourage the German prosecutor not to bow to U.S. pressure.
Defendants in the suit include Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, former CIA Director George Tenet, Lt. General Ricardo S. Sanchez, Major-General Walter Wojdakowski, Brig.-General Janis Karpinski, Lt.-Colonel Jerry L. Phillabaum, Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, Lt.-Colonel Stephen L. Jordan, Major-General Geoffrey Miller, and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.
German law allows German courts to prosecute for killing, torture, cruel and inhumane treatment, forcible transfers and sexual coercion such as occurred at Abu Ghraib. The world has seen the photographs and read the leaked “torture memos” – we are doing what is necessary when other systems of justice have failed and seeking to hold officials up the chain of command responsible for the shameful abuses that occurred.
Please join our effort! The letter appears below, first in German and then in English. The German Prosecutor has discretion to decide whether to initiate an investigation. It is critical that he hear from you so he knows that people around the world support this effort.
For more information on the suit, click here.
Deadline: January 15, 2005
Oberstaatsanwalt beim Bundesgerichtshof Dietrich
Der Generalbundesanwalt
beim Bundesgerichtshof
Postfach 27 20
76014 Karlsruhe
File #: 3 ARP 207/04-2
Hiermit erkläre ich meine ausdrückliche Unterstützung für die Strafanzeige des Centers For Constitutional Rights/New York gegen Donald Rumsfeld et al., vertreten durch Rechtsanwalt Wolfgang Kaleck in Berlin. Ich bitte die Bundesanwaltschaft, die Ermittlungen wegen der Vorfälle in Abu Ghraib und andernorts aufzunehmen. Da die USA sich nicht dem internationalen Gerichtshof unterstellen, ist dies die einzige Möglichkeit, dem Recht Geltung zu verschaffen.
I am writing to express my support for the criminal complaint filed against U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, et al., by the Center for Constitutional Rights, represented by Wolfgang Kaleck of Berlin, on November 30, 2004. I kindly request that you begin the investigations regarding the incidents at Abu Ghraib and others. Because the U.S. is failing to fully investigate, and because the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court, there is no other forum to turn to in seeking justice and accountability.
Mit freundlichen Grüssen,
Sincerely yours,
Oh... Mine too... 
