Pentagon says it is reviewing allegation Koran was desecrated at Guantanamo

WASHINGTON - The US Defense Department is reviewing allegations that interrogators at a military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba desecrated a Koran by stuffing it in a toilet to rattle Muslim prisoners, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.
The acknowlegement of the explosive allegation came after riots ignited by the reported desecration left four people dead and scores injured earlier in the day in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad.
"The allegation is being reviewed," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.
Whitman, however, defended the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison where more than 500 men are being held as suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda combatants.
"As you now we have given great consideration to the detainees that we're holding and their religious practices," he said. "We've given them culturally appropriate meals, we give them opportunities to worship, we give them appropriate religious materials like the Koran."
But he added: "This is a serious allegation and it's going to be looked into."
Newsweek magazine last week cited sources as saying that investigators at Guantanamo uncovered a previously unreported case that interrogators, trying to rattle prisoners, flushed a Koran down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and a dog leash.
The US Southern Command, which oversees the Guantanamo operation, recently concluded an investigation into possible abuses at the prison that surfaced in email from FBI officials assigned to Guantanamo.
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita, who said he was not aware of the alleged desecration of a Koran, said Tuesday that the Southern Command's investigation was currently under review by the Justice Department since it involved FBI officials and a separate inquiry by the bureau.
"I think we're probably several weeks away from being able to say that the commander has made his final assessments there," he said.

05/11/2005 15:13 GMT