BERLIN (Reuters) – Lawyers acting for a U.S. advocacy group will Tuesday file war crimes charges in Germany against senior U.S. administration officials for their alleged role in torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
“German law in this area is leading the world,” Peter Weiss, vice president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a human rights group, was quoted as saying in Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper’s Tuesday edition.
According to the group, German law allows war criminals to be investigated wherever they may be living.
The group filing charges is the Center for Constitutional Rights, and their description of the action is here. This is not some fringe organization. The have been working since 1966 to defend and advance our Constitutional rights, arguing numerous cases before the Supreme Court.
They will be holding news conferences tomorrow, and they ask that interested people check back on their home page over the next couple of days for the address of the German prosecutor. Letters in support of the prosecution will show the prosecutor that there is worldwide support.
This isn’t the action I would have liked to see in response to the Abu Ghraib crimes, but since our government is not interested in pursuing justice — or even asking for Rumsfeld’s reignation — we’ll have to shop for a proper venue. Despite support from all around the world, I wonder how much diplomatic resistance a lone prosecutor is willing to endure if he chooses to pursue this case. And I wonder how long it will take the Senate to pass another law authorizing an invasion of Germany in case a US Citizen is held for war crimes there.
