Judge dismisses Rumsfeld torture lawsuit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge dismissed on Tuesday a lawsuit seeking to hold former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other high-ranking military officers liable for the torture and abuse of Afghan and Iraqi prisoners, including some at Abu Ghraib prison.

In throwing out the lawsuit, U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Hogan ruled in the 58-page opinion that the defendants are entitled to immunity.

The plaintiffs had said they were stabbed, sexually abused, dunked in freezing water, and beaten while being hung upside down from the ceiling in Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison and other U.S.-run facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In his opinion, Hogan cited other court rulings that rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution generally do not extend to foreign citizens in other countries. The plaintiffs have no right to sue in U.S. court, he said.

Hogan said that allowing money damages against military officials during a war "would invite enemies to use our own federal courts to obstruct the armed forces' ability to act decisively and without hesitation in defense of our liberty and national interests."

The Bush administration argued the suit, filed on behalf of nine Iraqi and Afghan residents, must be dismissed.

Represented by U.S. civil-liberties lawyers, the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit that Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. military figures authorized abuse of detainees in violation of the Constitution and international treaties.

The lawsuit also named as defendants Army Lt. Col. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq at the time; former Army Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who ran the Abu Ghraib prison; and Army Col. Thomas Pappas, former head of intelligence at Abu Ghraib.

The ruling dismissing the lawsuit had been expected. At arguments in December, Hogan expressed reluctance to set a precedent by allowing the lawsuit to go forward.