did a search and didn't see this posted. Hopefully it's just a bunch of crap.
The decision over whether to try the outgoing Defense Secretary for 'war crimes' rests with a German government appointee rather than a judge, making it unlikely the case will proceed
The lawsuit filed in Germany this week against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Administration officials for alleged war crimes in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo has little chance of making it into court. That's according to Andreas Zimmerman, a professor of international criminal law at Kiel University who helped negotiate the Rome Treaty that founded the International Criminal Court and who drafted the German law under which Rumsfeld has been charged. Under German law, the decision over whether to try the case will rest with the federal prosecutor rather than with a judge. Federal prosecutors, of course, are subject to the wishes of the government, and the government is unlikely to press a case that would antagonize its American allies. "In theory the prosecutor could find him guilty of torture and put him in custody if he visited," says Zimmermann. "But in reality nothing is going to happen."
A similar suit was brought in Germany in 2005 and dismissed after prosecutors ruled that the U.S. still had jurisdiction and was pursuing those responsible. The civil rights activists who brought the Rumsfeld suit claim that the basis for that decision is no longer valid, since only lower-level figures have been convicted in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. The German federal prosecutor Monika Harms will likely make her decision officially early in the new year. "At best it's an uphill struggle," said Zimmermann.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1560224,00.html
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