On March 25, a detainee complained to guards that "urine came through an air vent" and splashed on him and his Koran. A guard admitted he was at fault, but a report released Friday evening offering new details about Koran 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 Korans to get wet, and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Koran.
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 Koran down a toilet triggered the investigation.
The story stirred worldwide controversy, and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan