"If we fail here, we will try in France, or in Spain. We want to show that there will be no safe haven anywhere in the world for him."

A lawyer acting for the Guantanamo detainee, Mohammed al-Qahtani, claims Rumsfeld approved special "tactics" including sleep deprivation and a prayer ban when he failed to break under interrogation.

"This is not just allegations, it is supported by government documentation," lawyer Gitanjali Gutierrez said.

The complaint asks Harms to open an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking US officials for allegedly authorising war crimes in the context of the war on terror, according to the lawyers.

Rumsfeld resigned last week after Republicans lost control of the US Congress to the opposition Democrats in mid-term elections seen as a referendum on the war in Iraq.

The lawyers' star witness is former US Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who commanded Abu Ghraib and 16 other US-run jails in Iraq.

Karpinski told the press conference: "What I see as my obligation is to provide the truth about what I saw and what I experienced in Iraq.

"When I was getting too close to what was happening they took me out of the equation - they removed Abu Ghraib from my control.

"Hopefully my testimony will stop this sort of thing ever happening again. I feel we have an obligation to the rest of the world because if the US does something it gives permission to the rest of the world, but it doesn't mean it is right."

Former White House counsel and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet, and other high-ranking US officials are also charged in the complaint.

Other groups involved in the suit include the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and the Republican Attorneys' Association, which has its headquarters in Berlin.

The Abu Ghraib scandal erupted in 2004 after photographs were leaked to the press showing US guards mistreating and sexually humiliating prisoners. Naked inmates were shown cowering in front of unmuzzled dogs.

Some critics of the US administration have complained that no senior officers have been prosecuted over Abu Ghraib.

Antoine Bernard, the executive director of the International Federation for Human Rights, said: "We have seen that until now the sanctions have stopped at the rank of staff sergeant.

"What interests us are the top members of the chain of command."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States had already thoroughly investigated abuses at Abu Ghraib.

He said the Pentagon had not yet seen the suit and knew of it only through press reports.

"From what I know, from the press accounts, it certainly sounds frivolous to me," Whitman told reporters.

1

2