The complaint, filed Tuesday in The Hague, follows a ruling by Italy's top criminal court ordering Berlin to pay euro1 million (US$1.4 million) in damages to nine relatives of victims of a June 1944 massacre in the Tuscan town of Civitella.

In the atrocity, German soldiers killed more than 200 civilians to avenge a deadly attack by partisans.

In its filing with the World Court, Germany argued that as a sovereign state it has immunity in Italian courts, and that any decision rendered in the Italian judiciary is unenforceable.

Germany, which says it has paid reparations for Nazi crimes under international treaties with Italy, rejected the ruling handed down by Italy's Court of Cassation two months ago.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner said seeking compensation for World War II crimes was "morally understandable but it is, in judicial terms, the wrong way to address this injustice, and so this ruling is not acceptable for us."

Compensation claims against Germany have been winding through the Italian judiciary since the late 1990s, when Luigi Ferrini sought restitution for his arrest and deportation to Germany in 1944 to work as a slave laborer in the Nazi armaments industry.

Germany fought the case, pleading immunity. Ferrini lost in two lower courts before the Court of Cassation overturned the previous decisions in 2004 and recognized Italian jurisdiction.

Jefferson. D-La., was indicted on bribery charges after agents found $90,000 in his freezer. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue that his trial should be delayed pending his appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jefferson argues that the charges are invalid because a grand jury got access to information about his actions as a member of Congress. That, Jefferson claims, runs afoul of a constitutional clause that shields members of Congress from civil or criminal action stemming from the performance of their legislative duties.

But in a brief filed this week in Richmond, Va., with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, prosecutor Mark Lytle said delaying the trial would cause "further prejudice," or harm, to the government's case against the nine-term congressman. The government brought the charges 18 months ago.

Jefferson, Lytle wrote, has not shown the required "reasonable probability" of success with the high court on the merits of his case.

In July, the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which required 28 mostly Eastern states to reduce smog-forming and soot-producing emissions that can travel long distances in the wind.

The court said the EPA overstepped its authority by instituting the rule, citing "more than several fatal flaws" in the regulation. However, a three-judge panel decided to reinstate the rule while the EPA develops a new clean air program.

Judge Judith W. Rogers said allowing the country to go without the protection of CAIR while the EPA fixes it "would sacrifice clear benefits to public health and the environment."

The judges did not give EPA a deadline to come up with new regulations, but warned the agency that this decision is not an "indefinite stay" of its July ruling.

The Environmental Protection Agency had predicted that the Clean Air Interstate Rule would prevent about 17,000 premature deaths a year by dramatically reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. In addition, the EPA said the rule would save up to $100 billion in health benefits, eliminate millions of lost work and school days and prevent tens of thousands of nonfatal heart attacks.