Check 'em out fer yerself - http://www.a-10.org/
Posted on 12/05/2004 4:24:42 PM PST by NCjim
Germany's federal prosecutors have been asked to launch investigative proceedings against members of the U.S. cabinet.
A U.S. human rights group filed war crime charges against U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials and military officers early this week, saying they were responsible for the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
Even though both the plaintiffs and the suspects are American, the complaint was filed on Tuesday with federal prosecutors at the Bundesgerichtshof in Karlsruhe. The human rights organization, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), led by its president Michael Ratter, said the case could be tried in Germany based on a law passed in 2002. It stipulates that human rights violations and war crimes can be prosecuted in Germany regardless of where they took place and where the perpetrators are from.
The Abu Ghraib scandal emerged last spring when photos showing U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi inmates were made public. To date, only low-level members of the U.S. military have been charged with abuse.
”In a way, I am here with a very heavy heart. … I would have preferred that our own courts would have taken what happened seriously. … But that is not the case in the United States at the moment,” Rattner said at a news conference in Berlin on Tuesday.
Rattner maintains that senior officials in Abu Ghraib had authorized inhumane treatment and torture and should stand trial. Rattner said that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush did not recognize international law or conventions.
The organization and its attorneys said that U.S. courts remained idle. The case could not be taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, since the United States was not a member of the institution. This was why they took the case to Germany, they said. ”German law in this area is leading the world,” Peter Weiss, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told Frankfurter Rundschau daily newspaper on Tuesday. The ”world principle” allows war crimes and human rights violations to be prosecuted across national borders.
The claim filed by the CCR also lists former CIA Director George Tenet, the former commander in Iraq, Ricardo Sanchez, and seven other military leaders.
The plaintiffs said it was hard to say whether the claim stood a chance of being accepted by the court. A spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutors' office refused to comment on the likelihood that the case would be heard. German attorney Wolfgang Kaleck, who helped file the complaint, said that it could be a long time before a decision was made. ”That could take years,” he is quoted as saying.
You know? It's really too bad WWII in Europe ended before we had an opportunity to use the Little Boy and Fat Man on Germany.
Check 'em out fer yerself - http://www.a-10.org/
In your quote, it was spelled "Rattner." The German story had it as "Ratter."
"I'd love for our few surviving WWII POWs to weigh in on Germany's stellar "human rights" record."
How soon they forget!
This is not the Germans, this is the Americans using the German courts. The definition of war crimes and the tendency to investigate them in the German courts comes from exactly what? Right, their WW II record. Sheesh, this is not something to blame the Germans for.
"It's really too bad WWII in Europe ended before we had an opportunity to use the Little Boy and Fat Man on Germany."
This is a case of some Americans using the German courts. Why are you blaming Germany for that? Much less justifying nuclear annihilation of Germany because their Constitution allows American fruitcakes to file suit there?
(A Constitution written, BTW, under the tutelage of the US -- would Germany have been granted nationhood if WE did NOT approve of their Constitution? . . . hmmmmm?)
True may not have read it all but I did.
And not only that, I've read the German Law involved.
It's simply a law written by lawyers to enable lawyers to dip into international pockets in order to fill their own pockets!
The Germans have declared that their courts can be used as a venue for prosecuting international war crimes.
CCR or anyone else could file in Germany cases against Saddam, Osama, those responsible for the genocide in the Sudan, Chirac for French troops slaughtering innocents in the Ivory Coast, or those responsible for the travesty in Beslan.
Why don't they persue those cases? Simple! There ain't no money to made on those cases! But take an American lawyer going after an American, now we're talking large $$ I wouldn't be surprised to see the junior John Boy signing on to this one once his Senate seat is officially gone in January.
btw, some of the major backers of CCR include the likes of Louis Farrakan, Lyndon LaRouche, Michael Moore and Sean Penn. Need I say more?
"...the case could be tried in Germany based on a law passed in 2002. It stipulates that human rights violations and war crimes can be prosecuted in Germany regardless of where they took place and where the perpetrators are from."
WOW, YESTERDAY'S NEWS IS SOOO EXCITING !!!
No, really, the chances of this case going through is basically zero. German pacifists tried the same stunt about two years ago. They failed. The court more or less told them that the law in question can only be invoked in very few, very special cases - and the Iraq war is not one of those cases. I fully expect those American lawyers to deliver a somewhat better show, with more petitions and maybe even trying to have the case retried at an appeal's court. Yet the final result will be the same: failure.
And the fact that there is a "globalization" of jurisdiction is nothing particularly German. Many Europeans try to sue e.g. big companies in American courts, because we don't have the system of "punitive damages". In Europe damages are limited, depending on the type of harm suffered.
So what's all the fuss about?
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