ICRC informed US about Quran abuse in 2002-2003

US authorities appeared to have taken corrective measures because allegations that the Quran was being disrespected stopped after mid-2003, said Simon Schorno, an ICRC spokesman here.

The issue sparked riots in Afghanistan last week that left 15 people dead following a report in Newsweek magazine that US investigators had found that interrogators at the prison threw a Quran in a toilet to rattle Muslim inmates.

The magazine this week retracted the story after its source developed doubts, and the Pentagon has said its own investigation has found no evidence to support the allegation that Qurans were defiled at the off-shore US prison.

But the rare disclosure by the ICRC, which normally keeps its reports to governments strictly confidential, indicated that the mishandling of the Quran by guards or interrogators at Guantanamo was a persistent problem during the prison's first year of operations.

The ICRC has been visiting detainees at the military-run prison at Guantanamo since January 2002, shortly after hundreds of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan began arriving at Guantanamo.