The US military has identified five incidents of "mishandling of Quran" by US personnel at the Guantanamo Bay, but found no credible evidence that the holy book had been flushed down a toilet, the commander of the prison said on Thursday. Brigadier General Jay Hood refused to specify the nature of the mishandling of the Quran at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, other than to say it did not involve placing it in a toilet.
An FBI agent quoted a detainee in an August 2002 document made public on Wednesday as saying guards had thrown a Quran in a toilet. Hood said military investigators interviewed that man this month, but did not directly ask him whether he had seen US personnel put a Quran in a toilet.
But Hood told a Pentagon briefing: "I'd like you to know that we have found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Quran down a toilet."
Hood said two US Guantanamo staffers had been disciplined. One was transferred to other duties, he said. He did not describe the other case.
Giving preliminary findings of a 12-day-old military inquiry into treatment of the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay, Hood said, investigators turned up 13 allegations of mishandling the Quran, with five confirmed cases of "what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Quran."
Four US guards and one interrogator were involved in the cases, three of which appeared to be deliberate mishandling and two accidental, Hood said.
Four of the five cases took place before written guidelines were issued in January 2003 on handling the Quran at the Guantanamo Bay, Hood said.
Hood also said US military investigators this month interviewed the detainee quoted in the August 2002 document. Hood said this detainee did not mention during the May 14 interview that the US personnel had placed a Quran in a toilet.
"The guards in the detention facility do not treat him well. Their behaviour is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Quran in the toilet," the FBI agent wrote, summarising the detainee's comments.
"We then proceeded to ask him about any incidents where he had seen the Quran defiled, desecrated or mishandled, and he allowed as how he hadn't, but he heard that guards at some other point and time had done this," Hood said.
But Hood said investigators did not directly ask the detainee about a Quran being placed in a toilet. "I do not believe they used that word toilet," he said.
The FBI documents also contained accounts of detainees telling FBI agents that the US personnel at the Guantanamo Bay kicked the Quran or threw it to the floor and beat prisoners.
Eight allegations of mishandling the Quran were not confirmed, Hood said. These involved six in which guards either accidentally touched a Quran, touched it within the scope of their duties or did not touch the book at all, he said. Two additional incidents involved interrogators who either touched or stood over a Quran, Hood said.
Hood said the inquiry turned up 15 incidents in which detainees themselves "mishandled or inappropriately treated the Quran," including one case in which a detainee ripped pages from his own Quran.
Hood said investigators have combed through 31,000 pages of documents.
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