German prosecutors receive complaint over Rumsfeld

BERLIN, Nov 14 (Reuters) German prosecutors received a complaint today from rights groups seeking charges against outgoing US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for alleged abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons.

The federal prosecutor's office, which refused to take up a similar case in 2004, confirmed it had received the complaint, which also names US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former CIA director George Tenet and high-ranking military officers.

''We received it by email this morning,'' spokesman Frank Wallenta said. ''We have to look at it and that will take some time.'' He declined to say when the prosecutor's office, based in Karlsruhe, could make a decision on the complaint, which he said was over 300 pages long.

The US-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) hopes German prosecutors will take up the case under Germany's universal jurisdiction law, which allows them to pursue cases originating outside the country.

The complaint is on behalf of 11 Iraqi citizens who were held at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and one detainee at the US Guantanamo Bay base on Cuba. The CCR says they were victims of beatings, sleep and food deprivation, hooding and sexual abuse.

Joining CCR in filing the complaint is the International Federation for Human Rights, the Republican Attorneys Association and others represented by Berlin attorney Wolfgang Kaleck, the CCR said in a statement.

Rumsfeld, who has come under fire in the United States for his handling of the Iraq war, resigned last week after nearly six years in the job.

His departure followed US elections in which the Democrats took control of Congress from President George W Bush's Republicans.

The CCR is challenging in several court cases what it considers US torture and indefinite detention of detainees.

In 2004, it asked German prosecutors to file a criminal case against Rumsfeld over what it said was U.S. military abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib.

The complaint almost forced Rumsfeld to cancel his participation in a prestigious security conference in Munich before the prosecutors threw out the case.

Now the CCR is trying again, arguing that Rumsfeld's resignation means he can no longer claim immunity.

It says the complaint contains substantial new evidence that was not in the 2004 filing.

REUTERS MS HT1550