Germany's federal prosecutor on Thursday rejected calls to investigate allegations that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was guilty of war crimes over the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal. The ruling came ahead of a European security conference in Munich this weekend, which a Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld was likely to attend. The U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and four Iraqis who say they were abused by American soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison had filed a criminal complaint with German Federal Prosecutor Kay Nehm in November. They were seeking to take advantage of a 2002 German law allowing for the prosecution of human rights abuses and war crimes regardless of where they occur. The complaint said that Rumsfeld, former CIA Director George Tenet, a senior defence official and seven U.S. military officers, including the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, were ultimately responsible for the torture and humiliation of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib. The German federal prosecutor said in a statement it was up to the United States in the first instance to pursue legal action against the alleged perpetrators and their superiors. --More 2355 Local Time 2055 GMT
