`Newsweek' apologizes for Koran report

This file photo dated May 8 shows Pakistani men reading the ``Newsweek'' at a book shop in Islamabad. ``Newsweek,'' whose story of alleged desecration of a Koran sparked protests in Muslim countries, said on Sunday that its report might have been wrong. PHOTO: AFP

Newsweek magazine has apologized for errors in a story alleging that interrogators at the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, desecrated the Koran, saying it would re-examine the accusations, which sparked outrage and deadly protests in Afghanistan.

Fifteen people died and scores were injured in violence between protesters and security forces, prompting US promises to investigate the allegations.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst," Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker wrote in a note to readers.

In an issue dated May 9, the magazine reported that US military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam's holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.

Whitaker wrote that the magazine's information came from "a knowledgeable US government source," and before publishing the item, writers Michael Isikoff and John Barry sought comment from two Defense Department officials.

One declined to respond, and the other challenged another part of the story but did not dispute the Koran charge, Whitaker said.

But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded "it was never meant to look into charges of Koran desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them `not credible.'"

Also, Whitaker added, the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Koran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document.

"Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we," Whitaker wrote.

Newsweek Washington Bureau chief Daniel Klaidman said the magazine believes it erred in reporting the allegation that a prison guard tried to flush the Koran down a toilet and that military investigators had confirmed the accusation.

"The issue here is to get the truth out, to acknowledge as quickly as possible what happened, and that's what we're trying to do," Klaidman told the CBS Evening News on Sunday.

Following the report, demonstrations spread across Afghanistan, and Islamic leaders gathered to pass a resolution calling for anyone found to have abused the Koran to be punished.

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the US-led war against the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan.

US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said in an interview for CNN's Late Edition that the allegations were being investigated "vigorously."

"If it turns out to be true, obviously we will take action against those responsible," he said.