Rumsfeld Debating Whether to Avoid Germany t r u t

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Rumsfeld Debating Whether to Avoid Germany
By Charles Aldinger
Reuters

Friday 04 February 2005

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday he has not decided whether to attend an international security conference next week in Germany, where he might be subject to arrest on a war-crimes complaint.

"I have not made a final decision on that (attendance). And there are several factors," Rumsfeld told reporters when asked if he would go to the prestigious annual private Munich Conference on Security Policy Feb. 12-13 when he is in Europe next week.

He conceded in response to questions at a press conference that one problem was the jurisdiction of a German court over a 160-page criminal complaint filed Nov. 30 with the federal prosecutor's office in Germany accusing him of war crimes in connection with detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

That complaint was brought by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a group of lawyers representing Iraqis who say they were mistreated by U.S. forces at the Baghdad prison.

The complaint also names other senior U.S. military authorities, including former U.S. commander in Iraq Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet.

"It's certainly an issue, as it was in Belgium. It's something that we have to take into consideration," Rumsfeld said of the suit on Thursday. "Whether I end up there we'll soon know. It'll be a week, and we'll find out."

The German prosecutor's office has taken no action on he complaint, based on a 2002 German law that the gives the Karlsruhe Court "universal jurisdiction" in cases involving alleged war crimes.

A similar law was previously passed in Belgium but later modified, and cases against U.S. and other officials, including Cuban President Fidel Castro, were dismissed or rejected.

Officials of the Munich conference, which marked its 40th anniversary last year, earlier told the Washington Post that Rumsfeld might not attend. It draws members of (the U.S. Congress), cabinet ministers, lawmakers and prominent analysts and politicians from many parts of Europe and Asia.

Rumsfeld told reporters on Thursday he would attend an informal meeting of NATO defense ministers in Nice, France, Feb. 9-10 and was likely to make other stops, but that his final schedule was not complete.

"I'm going to be in Nice. And I'm very likely going to visit some other locations in that part of the world during that period," he said.

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