Germany's federal prosecutor says the allegations that United States Defense Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top Washington brass were responsible for Abu Ghraib must be investigated in the US, not under German war crimes laws. The decision deals a blow to the American group that brought the case, but it could ease German-American tensions.

AFP Off the hook: Germany's federal prosecutor says he won't investigate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on war crimes charges for Abu Ghraib.

For more than two months, a legal petition to investigate United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on war crimes charges connected to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal threatened to further strain relations between Berlin and Washington, where diplomats have been working overtime to patch up relations lately. The case made headlines again in recent weeks in the run-up to an annual Security Conference in Munich because Rumsfeld had threatened to sit out the meeting if the petition against him wasn't dropped.

On Thursday, Germany's federal prosecutor, Kay Nehm, said his office would not pursue the case. In his statement, Nehm said that German authorities could only pursue the allegations if US authorities refused to do so -- and currently, there is no evidence that they won't. The men accused of torture at Abu Ghraib are all American citizens, none of the victims are German, and the cases should either be tried in the US or the victims' own countries, Nehm's office said.

Rumsfeld left open last week whether he would attend the prestigious conference and attributed his uncertainty to the petition. "It's certainly an issue, as it was in Belgium. It's something that we have to take into consideration," he said.