Echo2
12-15-2004, 10:33 AM
U.S. Threatens Germany Over Rumsfeld Lawsuit
The filing of a lawsuit by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) against Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of four Iraqis abused in U.S. custody is being taken very seriously at the Pentagon. "I think every government in the world, particularly a NATO ally, understands the potential effect on relations with the United States if these kinds of frivolous lawsuits were ever to see the light of day," Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita told reporters. The CCR filed the complaint in Berlin because German law grants their courts universal jurisdiction in cases involving war crimes or crimes against humanity and "makes or civilian commanders who fail to prevent their subordinates from committing such acts liable."
Ignoring the intention to put Rumsfeld in the spotlight and not the ordinary grunts, DiRita said "if these kinds of lawsuits take place with American servicemen in the cross-hairs, you bet it's something we take seriously." The Pentagon is clearly motivated by the fear that German courts would start a discovery process implicating higher-ups in systematic ill-treatment in stark contrast to the concentration in the U.S. on the misdeeds of ordinary soldiers.
Meanwhile the abuse scandal has spread to the Marine Corps with the release by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pentagon documents detailing a catalogue of mistreatment of Iraqi detainees carried out by a variety of units. The incidents included one where "three Marines shocked a detainee with an electric transformer, forcing him to 'dance' as the electricity hit him." The pattern of deadly treatment of detainees in Afghanistan is also becoming clearer with the Pentagon now owning up to the deaths of eight prisoners in U.S. detention.
The filing of a lawsuit by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) against Donald Rumsfeld on behalf of four Iraqis abused in U.S. custody is being taken very seriously at the Pentagon. "I think every government in the world, particularly a NATO ally, understands the potential effect on relations with the United States if these kinds of frivolous lawsuits were ever to see the light of day," Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita told reporters. The CCR filed the complaint in Berlin because German law grants their courts universal jurisdiction in cases involving war crimes or crimes against humanity and "makes or civilian commanders who fail to prevent their subordinates from committing such acts liable."
Ignoring the intention to put Rumsfeld in the spotlight and not the ordinary grunts, DiRita said "if these kinds of lawsuits take place with American servicemen in the cross-hairs, you bet it's something we take seriously." The Pentagon is clearly motivated by the fear that German courts would start a discovery process implicating higher-ups in systematic ill-treatment in stark contrast to the concentration in the U.S. on the misdeeds of ordinary soldiers.
Meanwhile the abuse scandal has spread to the Marine Corps with the release by the American Civil Liberties Union of Pentagon documents detailing a catalogue of mistreatment of Iraqi detainees carried out by a variety of units. The incidents included one where "three Marines shocked a detainee with an electric transformer, forcing him to 'dance' as the electricity hit him." The pattern of deadly treatment of detainees in Afghanistan is also becoming clearer with the Pentagon now owning up to the deaths of eight prisoners in U.S. detention.