The U.S. military released new details yesterday about
five confirmed cases of U.S. personnel mishandling the Koran at the prison in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, acknowledging that soldiers and interrogators kicked the
Muslim holy book, got copies wet, stood on a Koran during an interrogation and
inadvertently sprayed urine on another copy.
Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, commander of Joint Task Force
Guantanamo, who completed the three-week inquiry this week into alleged
mishandling of the Koran, confirmed five cases of intentional or unintentional
mishandling of the holy book, which appear to be unrelated, from among 19
alleged incidents since the detention facility opened in January 2002. His
investigation also found 15 incidents of detainees desecrating
Korans.
In a news release from the U.S. Southern Command late
yesterday, Hood expanded on statements he made at a Pentagon news briefing last
week, when he characterized the incidents as rare, isolated and largely
inadvertent. Officials said they have issued more than 1,600 Korans at the
facility.
"Mishandling a Koran at Guantanamo Bay is a rare
occurrence," Hood said in the statement. "Mishandling of a Koran here is never
condoned. When one considers the many thousands of times detainees have been
moved and cells have been searched since detention operations first began here
in January 2002, I think one can only conclude that respect for detainee
religious beliefs was embedded in the culture of [the task force] from the
start."
In a statement, White House spokesman Scott McClellan
said that "our men and women in the military adhere to the highest standards,
including when it comes to respecting and protecting religious
freedom."
Detainees, human rights groups and some military
personnel have complained about desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay. Tom
Wilner, an attorney for 11 Kuwaiti nationals being held at the prison, said
yesterday that the number and persistence of reports of Koran abuse from
detainees indicate a much broader problem than indicated by the Hood
inquiry.
"It's sort of amazing today that we define truth as
only when the government confirms something happened," Wilner said. "I think
there is no question that, especially in the early days of Guantanamo, there was
a persistent pattern of physical abuse and religious discrimination, including
desecration of the Koran. . . . But it hasn't been fully looked
at."
Investigators were specifically looking into
allegations that U.S. personnel had flushed a Koran down a toilet at Guantanamo
Bay. Newsweek reported in early May that such an allegation had been confirmed,
setting off riots in Muslim nations that left 16 people dead, but then retracted
the story. Hood's inquiry determined that no such incident took
place.
The probe did find, however, that rumors of such an
event swirled around the facility in the summer of 2002 after a detainee dropped
his Koran on the floor and other detainees blamed the mishandling on U.S.
guards. The story, according to a U.S. Southern Command news release, changed as
detainees passed it along, escalating to rumors that U.S. troops ripped pages
out of the book and then flushed it.
But the investigation's results also are contrary to a
recent claim by a top Pentagon spokesman that there were no credible accounts of
Korans being mishandled -- though he added that officials would nevertheless
conduct an investigation.
The first case, in February 2002, arose when a
detainee complained that guards at Camp X-Ray kicked the Koran of a detainee in
a neighboring cell. Though interrogators and guards noted the incident at the
time, there was no further investigation.
In another case, in August 2003, two detainees
complained to their guards that a number of Korans were wet "because the night
shift guards had thrown water balloons on the block." No further details of the
incident were provided, but Hood's team determined the complaints to be credible
and found "no evidence that the incident, although clearly inappropriate, caused
any type of disturbance on the block."
Other confirmed reports included a two-word obscenity
being written in the inside cover of a Koran, though investigators were unable
to determine who wrote the phrase and concluded it was possible that the
complaining detainee -- who was conversant in English -- may have defaced his
own book. Another report, in July 2003, detailed an incident in which a contract
interrogator stood on a detainee's Koran during an interrogation. The
interrogator was fired for a "pattern of unacceptable behavior, an inability to
follow direct guidance and poor leadership," according to the news release
yesterday.
The most recent, and perhaps strangest, case of
mishandling was documented on March 25, 2005, when a detainee complained to the
guards that urine came through an air vent in his cell and "splashed on him and
his Koran while he laid near the air vent." According to Hood's investigation,
the guard who was responsible reported himself to his superiors and was
reassigned to gate duty. The detainee was given a new uniform and
Koran.
"The guard had left his observation area post and went
outside to urinate," according to a summary of the incident. "He urinated near
an air vent and the wind blew his urine through the vent into the
block."
Hood's investigation also turned up 15 incidents in
which detainees mishandled Korans between Nov. 19, 2002, and Feb. 18, 2005. Many
of the cases involved detainees ripping up their own Korans, throwing the Koran
or its pages out of their cells, or trying to deface a Koran belonging to
another detainee. One detainee used his Koran as a pillow, one used pages from
it to cover the air vent in his cell, and another ripped up his Koran and handed
it to a guard, stating that he had "given up on being a
Muslim."
Three of the detainee cases involved spitting or
throwing urine on Korans, and in one case, on Jan. 19, 2005, a detainee
allegedly "tore up his Koran and tried to flush it down the toilet," according
to the report. Four days later, a detainee ripped pages from the book and tried
to flush them down the toilet as a protest, because he wanted to be moved to
another part of the camp.
Staff writer Michael A. Fletcher in Waco, Tex.,
contributed to this
report.
