The decision of the German Federal Prosecutor of February this year not to start a formal investigation against Rumsfeld and other Americans allegedly responsible for the Abu Ghraib torture has been appealed by the victims. Now that appeal has been rejected by a Court in Stuttgart (decision of 13 September 2005, see the press release of the court in German).
The reason for not investigating this case in the first place was that the Federal Prosecutor trusted the American authorities to do the necessary investigations. Maybe I have missed something here, but as far as I know, there is no official investigation in America against either Rumsfeld or Tenet.
Therefore, the trust of the German Federal Prosecutor in the integrity of the American criminal justice institutions seems to have been misplaced.
The Stuttgart High Court however has confirmed the Federal Prosecutor's decision.
It remains to be seen if there will be any meaningful criminal investigation in America against Rumsfeld. I would be rather surprised if that happened anytime soon.
Posted by Karl-Friedrich Lenz at September 24, 2005 08:25 PM