A prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who complained that a military guard threw a Quran holy book in the toilet has since recanted the story, senior Pentagon officials said Thursday.

The prisoner, who made his complaint in an FBI interrogation in July 2002, is one of several quoted in newly released documents as saying that U.S. military personnel desecrated the Qurans of Muslim detainees at the prison.

Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told reporters that U.S. investigators had re-interviewed the unidentified prisoner on May 14.

“He has said it didn’t happen,” Di Rita said.

Another spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said the detainee “indicated, when asked about the desecration, that he was not knowledgeable of anything.” link

If I remember correctly, victims released from the Abu Ghraib facility in the wake of the unauthorized photography incidents were required to sign a statement saying they had been treated humanely and would not discuss the matter further subsequent to their release.

I don’t know what the Guantanamo victims were required to sign, but it would appear that Washington is taking a tough stance on violators, and we can expect more chatty victims to respond to re-interrogation as promptly and definitively as this one has.

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