Rumsfeld flees France fearing arrest
Sat, 10/27/2007 - 08:45
Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest
over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the
American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment
facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.
US embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting
in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups
filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W.
Bush's "war on terror" for six years.
Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an
investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French
soil.
According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld shouting "murderer" and
"war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, US embassy officials remained
tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security
reasons".
Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary fled over
the open border to Germany, where a war crimes case against Rumsfeld was
dismissed by a federal court. But activist point out that under the Schengen
agreement that ended border checkpoints across a large part of the European
Union, French law enforcement agents are allowed to cross the border into
Germany in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive.
"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when US forces were hunting
him down," activist Tanguy Richard said. "He may never end up being hanged like
his old friend, but he must learn that in the civilized world, war crime
doesn't pay."
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 the
complaint on Thursday after learning that Rumsfeld was scheduled to visit Paris.
The Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Uganda is in anarchy"
Groupe de communication Mulindwas
"avec Yoweri Museveni, l'Ouganda est dans l'anarchie"
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