Pentagon: Koran Defiled

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon late Friday confirmed five incidents of Koran desecration at the prison for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapping up a high-priority investigation.

The findings concluded that one soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book, other guards hit it with water balloons, and a soldier's urine splashed on a prisoner and his Koran.

Details of the incidents are contained in the final report of the inquiry headed by Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, commander of the detention center for terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

The report established that two other cases of desecration had occurred. In one, a two-word obscenity was written in English inside a prisoner's Koran. In the other, an interrogator deliberately stepped on the book. That interrogator was later fired for "a pattern of unacceptable behavior."

Charges of Koran desecration triggered vociferous protests in the Muslim world and were blamed for contributing to riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan that resulted in more than two dozen deaths. But Hood, in releasing his final report, said his investigators found no proof that U.S. personnel flushed a Koran down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay, an assertion reported but later retracted by Newsweek magazine.

"The inquiry found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Koran down a toilet," Hood said. "This matter is considered closed."

Lawrence Di Rita, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said that military policy called for "respectful and appropriate" handling of the Koran. "The Hood inquiry would appear to confirm that policy," said Di Rita, who was traveling with Rumsfeld in Asia.

Hood said the five confirmed incidents represented a very small number when measured against the fact that more than 1,600 copies of the holy book had been distributed to prisoners since the facility in Cuba was opened in January 2002.

And the general said his team gathered evidence that detainees themselves desecrated the Koran on 15 separate occasions. Two of them tossed their copies into toilets while another was seen "urinating on the Koran," the report said. Hood said that guards also spotted detainees using the Koran as a pillow and ripping out its pages.