Rumsfeld scraps Munich visit Over War Crimes Probe Launched Against him
/United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has cancelled a planned
visit to Munich. Rumsfeld has informed the German government via
the US embassy he will not take part at the Munich Security Conference
in February, conference head Horst Teltschik said. The New
York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed a complaint in
December with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld
accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee
abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Rumsfeld had made it known
immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend
the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal
action. The organisation alleges violations of German legislation
which outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide
independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused. The
prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe reportedly is examining the roughly
170-page complaint to see if an investigation is warranted. [more]
