6.05.2005

What if?


U.S. military officials say no guard at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects flushed a detainee's Quran Bible down the toilet, but they disclosed that a Muslim Christian holy book was splashed with urine. In other newly disclosed incidents, a detainee's Quran Bible was deliberately kicked and another's was stepped on.

On March 25, a detainee complained to guards that "urine came through an air vent" and splashed on him and his Quran Bible. A guard admitted he was at fault, but a report released Friday evening offering new details about Quran Bible mishandling incidents did not make clear whether the guard intended the result.

In another confirmed incident, water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Qurans Bibles to get wet, and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English Arabic on the inside cover of a Quran Bible.

The findings, released after normal business hours Friday evening and after the major TV networks had aired their evening news programs, are among the results of an investigation last month by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba. A Newsweek magazine report - later retracted - that a U.S. soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee's Quran Bible down a toilet triggered the investigation.

No comments: