US: Numerous detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba told FBI interrogators that guards had mistreated copies of the Koran, including one who said in 2002 that guards "flushed a Koran in the toilet", according to new FBI documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The summaries of FBI interviews, obtained by the ACLU as part of an ongoing lawsuit, also include allegations that the Koran was kicked, thrown to the floor and withheld as punishment and that guards mocked Muslim prisoners during prayers.
The release of the new FBI documents comes in the wake of an international uproar and multiple deaths in rioting over a now-retracted story by Newsweek magazine, which reported that an internal military report had confirmed that a Koran was flushed down a toilet.
The hundreds of pages of documents consist of FBI summaries of detainee interrogations, many of which were heavily edited by the government, underscore the widespread nature of allegations related to the Koran and Islam among detainees at Guantanamo.
Red Cross investigators in 2002 and 2003 documented what they considered reliable allegations of Koran mistreatment at the facility, while some detainees had made similar allegations through their lawyers.
Pentagon officials have said previously that detainee allegations about the Koran have not been considered credible, although authorities have launched an internal review in the wake of the Newsweek controversy.
Amrit Singh, an ACLU attorney, said in a press release that "the United States' own documents show that it has known of numerous allegations of Koran desecration for a significant period of time.
"The failure to address these allegations in a timely manner raises grave questions regarding the extent to which such desecration was authorised by high-ranking US officials in the first place," Mr Singh said.
The new documents include other allegations of questionable treatment at Guantanamo.
These include two reports of beatings by guards and a report that a female guard told a prisoner she was menstruating and then "wiped blood from her body on his face and head."