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Human rights groups have filed a lawsuit in Germany, accusing the outgoing US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of allegedly acquiescing in prisoner torture, German media reported Tuesday.

The case is being brought on behalf of 11 former Iraqi detainees of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and one Saudi currently being held at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, German radio Deutsch Welle reported.

The suit, filed to Germany's federal prosecutor Monika Harms at her offices in the western German city of Karlsruhe, is a second attempt to prosecute Rumsfeld in Germany after a similar case was rejected two years ago.

"We failed two years ago because there was an ongoing investigation in the United States, but it is now clear that there is no chance of prosecuting high-ranking officials in the US," the German lawyer representing the detainees, Wolfgang Kaleck told a press conference in Berlin.

"We are not expecting that Rumsfeld will appear in a court, but we are hoping investigators will begin looking into the case," he said. "We want to show that there will be no safe haven anywhere in the world for him," he added.

The civil rights activists, accusing Rumsfeld of approving special "tactics" including sleep deprivation and a ban on praying, called for an investigation and, ultimately, a criminal prosecution that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking US officials for allegedly authorizing war crimes in the context of the war on terror.

Rumsfeld resigned last week after Republicans lost control of the US Congress to the opposition Democrats in midterm elections largely due to the US-led invasion in Iraq.

On Monday, the Pentagon said that Rumsfeld has decided not to join President George W. Bush at a NATO summit later this month in Latvia.

Rumsfeld also canceled a plan to attend a pre-summit meeting in Washington with German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, Pentagon press secretary Eric Ruff said.

The Pentagon would be represented at the summit meeting by Eric Edelman, the undersecretary of defense for policy, US media reported.

Rumsfeld has agreed to stay in the post until his successor, former Central Intelligence Agency director Robert Gates, was confirmed by the Senate. Bush has called the Senate to confirm Gates' nomination before the current 109th Congress expires early next year.

(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2006)