washingtontimes.com/national/20050604-122746-9402r.htm
US NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- An interrogator accidentally step ped on a prisoner's Koran, copies of Islam's holy text got wet when guar ds tossed water balloons into a cellblock and one was "splashed" by urin e, according to the final results of a Pentagon probe. But the investigation sparked by accusations in the press about desec ration of the Koran here found "no credible evidence" that prison guards or interrogators "ever flushed a Koran down a toilet," the US Souther n Command, which oversees the prison for terrorism suspects, said yester day.
The findings show that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at the detentio n center themselves mishandled Korans on 15 occasions, three times more than the military prison's guards and interrogators. "These included usi ng a Koran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Koran, attempting to fl ush a Koran down the toilet, and urinating on the Koran." The probe found five confirmed incidents of military guards and inter rogators "mishandling" the Koran, a fact cited by military officials bef ore but never described in detail. The incidents were: March 5, 2005, a detainee and his Koran were "splashed" by urine whi le the detainee lay near an air vent inside the prison. A guard was foun d to have "urinated near an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the block." The guard was "reprimanded" and reassigned to duties of no contact with detainees. August 2003, a "two-word obscenity" was written in English on the in side cover of an English-language version of one detainee's Koran. it is equally possible that the detainee wrote in his own Koran." August 2003, military officials acting as night guards in the prison tossed water balloons into a cellblock causing several Korans to become wet. Detainees complained to the guards about the incident, which went uninvestigated until last month. July 2003, a contract interrogator apologized to a detainee for step ping on the detainee's Koran during an interrogation session. The detain ee "accepted the apology and agreed to inform other detainees of the apo logy and ask them to cease disruptive behaviors caused by the incident." February 2002, military prison guards kicked a copy of one detainee' s Koran. A detainee complained about the incident to an interrogator. The Defense Department called for the investigation last month after Newsweek magazine cited sources as saying officials had flushed a Koran down a toilet. Newsweek later retracted the report, but it caused outrag e in the Muslim world, including Afghanistan, where more than a dozen pe ople were killed during violent anti-American demonstrations. "Mishandling a Koran at Guantanamo Bay is a rare occurrence," said Ar my Brig. "We defined mishandling a s touching, holding or the treatment of a Koran in a manner inconsistent with policy or procedure." The investigation cited four unconfirmed incidents of Koran mishandli ng by military officials and interrogators, including one in which a fem ale military police officer was accused of tossing a Koran into a bag of wet towels to anger a detainee, and another in which an interrogator "p ut his foot on the Koran." Hood previously had refused to detail the five incidents of guar ds "mishandling" the Koran, citing the ongoing investigation. He had sai d there never has been a confirmed incident of guards flushing a Koran d own the toilet. Military officials said methods for handling Korans, which are offere d in 13 languages to the 558 terror suspects detained here, are strictly designed to protect the Islamic holy book's religious and cultural sanc tity. Military officials here have issued more than 1,600 copies of the Kor an to detainees. The Defense Department noted detainees often get moved from their cells for interrogation sessions. In all, more than 28,000 in terrogations have been conducted on the detainees.
An al Qaeda handbook preaches to operatives to level charges of tortu re once captured, a training regimen that administration officials say e xplains some of the charges of abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The American Civil Liberties Union last week posted on its Web site 2 002 FBI documents regarding accusations from suspected al Qaeda and Tali ban detainees at the detention center. The organization had won a court decision that forced the administration to release scores of e-mails bet ween agents who had interviewed captives. US Southern Command also is investigating interrogation techniques at the prison camp, as well as the FBI-conveyed, unsubstantiated complai nts. The US Justice Department inspector general has begun a separate probe.
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