Donald Rumsfeld charged with torture during trip to France

Press release
France/USA

Complaint Filed Against Former Defense Secretary for Torture, Abuse
at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib

October 26, 2007, Paris, France – Today, the International Federation
for Human Rights (FIDH) along with the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR), the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights
(ECCHR), and the French League for Human Rights (LDH) filed a
complaint with the Paris Prosecutor before the "Court of First
Instance" (Tribunal de Grande Instance) charging former Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld with ordering and authorizing torture.
Rumsfeld was in Paris for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.

"The filing of this French case against Rumsfeld demonstrates that we
will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in the torture
program are brought to justice. Rumsfeld must understand that he has
no place to hide. A torturer is an enemy of all humankind," said CCR
President Michael Ratner.

"France is under the obligation to investigate and prosecute
Rumsfeld's accountability for crimes of torture in Guantanamo and
Iraq. France has no choice but to open an investigation if an alleged
torturer is on its territory. I hope that the fight against impunity
will not be sacrificed in the name of politics. We call on France to
refuse to be a safe haven for criminals." said FIDH President Souhayr
Belhassen.

"We want to combat impunity and therefore demand a judicial
investigation and a criminal prosecution wherever there is
jurisdiction over the torture incidents," said ECCHR General
Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck.

"That a criminal State representative should benefit from impunity is
always unacceptable. Because the USA is the super power of the
beginning of this century and, above all, because it is a democracy,
the impunity of Donald Rumsfeld is even more insufferable than that
of a Hissène Habré or a Radovan Karadzic", underlined Jean-Pierre
Dubois, LDH President.

The criminal complaint states that because of the failure of
authorities in the United States and Iraq to launch any independent
investigation into the responsibility of Rumsfeld and other
high-level U.S. officials for torture despite a documented paper
trail and government memos implicating them in direct as well as
command responsibility for torture – and because the U.S. has refused
to join the International Criminal Court – it is the legal obligation
of states such as France to take up the case.

In this case, charges are brought under the 1984 Convention against
Torture, ratified by both the United States and France, which has
been used in France in previous torture cases.

French courts therefore have an obligation under the Convention
against Torture to prosecute individuals responsible for acts of
torture if they are present on French territory (1). This will be the
only case filed while he is in the country, which makes the
obligations to investigate and prosecute under international law
extremely strong.

Rumsfeld's presence on French territory gives French courts
jurisdiction to prosecute him for having ordered and authorized
torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees in
Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

In addition, having resigned from his position of U.S. Secretary of
Defense a year ago, Rumsfeld can no longer try to claim immunity as a
head of state or government official. Nor can he claim immunity as
former state official, as international law does not recognize such
immunity in the case of international crimes including the crime of torture.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, former commander
of Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, submitted written
testimony to the Paris Prosecutor for the plaintiffs' case on
Rumsfeld's responsibility for the abuse of detainees.

This is the fifth time Rumsfeld has been charged with direct
involvement in torture stemming from his role in the Bush
administration's program of torture post-9/11.

Two previous criminal complaints were filed in Germany under its
universal jurisdiction statute, which allows Germany to prosecute
serious international crimes regardless of where they occurred or the
nationality of the perpetrators or victims. One case was filed in
fall 2004 by CCR, FIDH, and Berlin attorney Wolfgang Kaleck; that
case was dismissed in February 2005 in response to official pressure
from the U.S., in particular from the Pentagon.

The second case was filed in fall 2006 by the same groups as well as
dozens of national and international human rights groups, Nobel Peace
Prize winners and the United Nations former Special Rapporteur on
Torture. The 2006 complaint was presented on behalf of 12 Iraqi
citizens who had been held and abused in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
and one Saudi citizen still held at Guantánamo. This case was
dismissed in April 2007, and an appeal will be filed against this
decision next week.

Two other cases were filed against Rumsfeld in Argentina in 2005 and
in Sweden in 2007.

The complaint and the documents attached are available on FIDH Website :
http://www.fidh.org/spip.php?article4831
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Press contact : Karine Appy + 33 1 43 55 14 12 / + 33 1 43 55 25 18 /
+ 33 6 68 42 93 47
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(1) See articles 689 para 1 and 2 of the french Code of Criminal Procedure :
- Article 689-1)
In accordance with the international Conventions quoted in the
following articles, a person guilty of committing any of the offences
listed by these provisions outside the territory of the Republic and
who happens to be in France may be prosecuted and tried by French
courts. The provisions of the present article apply to attempts to
commit these offences, in every case where attempt is punishable.
- Article 689-2
For the implementation of the Convention against Torture and
other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted in
New York on 10th December 1984, any person guilty of torture in the
sense of article 1 of the Convention may be prosecuted and tried in
accordance with the provisions of article 689-1.