Rumsfeld, under fire for his handling of the Iraq war, resigned after the Republican party dramatically lost the U.S. midterm elections.

Now the Center for Constitutional Rights, an American group representing one Saudi and 11 Iraqis, has filed the lawsuit in a German court.

The 220-page complaint, sent to the Karlsruhe federal office of the attorney general, blames Rumsefld and 11 other American officials for ordering, aiding, or failing to prevent war crimes and torture in the military prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

German lawyer, Wolfgang Kaleck, indicated that they have evidence linking Rumsfeld directly to these incidents.

The lawsuit alleges that the detainees were subject to sleep deprivation, starvation and sexual humiliation. German laws permit suing for war crimes no matter where the crime was alleged to have been committed.

A similar lawsuit, which had a narrower scope, was rejected two years ago in Germany. German prosecutors dismissed the lawsuit with the stipulation that it should have come from the victim of the crime.

If this previous attempt had succeeded and Rumsfeld was tried in court, he could have been detained during his visit to Germany.