'Mishandling' of Koran upheld at Guantanamo

US officials have substantiated five cases in which military guards or interrogators mishandled the Koran of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

But they found ”no credible evidence” to confirm a prisoner’s report that a holy book was flushed in a toilet, the prison’s commander said yesterday.

Meanwhile, hard-line Islamic groups were expected today to hold protest rallies in Pakistan over the alleged desecration, a day after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf demanded punishment for anyone found responsible.

Musharraf told visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca that people in Pakistan were “deeply dismayed by the reported desecration of Holy Koran at Guantanamo Bay”.

He called for a “full inquiry to bring to justice the perpetrators of this shameful act”, a Foreign Ministry statement said.

Brig Gen Jay Hood, who commands the detention centre in Cuba, told a Pentagon news conference that a prisoner who was reported to have complained to an FBI agent in 2002 that a military guard threw a Koran in the toilet has told Hood’s investigators that he never witnessed any form of Koran desecration.

The unidentified prisoner, re-interviewed at Guantanamo on May 14, said he had heard talk of guards mishandling religious articles, but did not witness any such acts, Hood said.

The prisoner also stated that he personally had not been mistreated but that he heard fellow inmates talk of being beaten or otherwise mistreated.

Of the 13 alleged incidents, five were substantiated, Hood said. Four were by guards and one was by an interrogator. Hood said the five cases “could be broadly defined as mishandling” of the holy book, but he refused to discuss details.

In three of the five cases, the mishandling appears to have been deliberate. In the other two, it apparently was accidental.

“None of these five incidents was a result of a failure to follow standard operating procedures in place at the time the incident occurred,” Hood said.

Later, he said there was no written version of a standard operating procedure during the first year prisoners were held at Guantanamo.

Allegations of Koran abuse have stirred worldwide controversy. After Newsweek magazine reported earlier this month that US officials had confirmed a Koran was flushed in a toilet, deadly demonstrations were held in Afghanistan, although it is not clear what role that story played in sparking the violence. Newsweek later retracted its report.