Following report about Israeli military police abusing the Holy Koran in Magiddo prison, Israeli Prison Service officials commented on Thursday that it was unintentional, rejecting accusation that guards had torn pages of the Koran during a search.
According to the Lieutenant General Ya’akov Ganot, commissioner of the prisons authority, a member of the security forces on visit to the jail had caused damage to the Islamic holy book, but it was not done malevolently.
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Ganot’s comments came in a meeting he had with the deputy head of the Islamic Movement Sheik Camal Hatab outside the Megiddo Prison during a protest organized by the movement.
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Earlier Israeli officials totally denied the accusation saying that loose pages, not even Koran related, fell as they were placed inside the Holy Book.
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The reports about the Koran abuse sparked fury among Palestinians, and all prisoners at the jail refused food after calling a day-long fast to protest.
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A representative for the prisoners, Muathasam Daud, was also present at the meeting between Ganot and Hatab.
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Daud said three Korans were damaged after pages were torn out of them, by a special police unit that held a search in prison cells, and not by the prison guards.
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Fury among Palestinians also resulted from earlier reports about Koran discretion by American troops in Guantanamo Bay military base, where many Moslems are imprisoned.
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Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, of Fatah, called these acts ‘an insult to all Muslims.’
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The Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, Sofian Abu Zaydeh, said he was heading to the jail to look into the matter personally.
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MK Mohammed Barakeh, said after he visited the jail, that he saw torn Koran books, and that Israel was unfairly accusing the prisoner of creating a provocation.
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‘I saw with my own eyes two Koran books with several pages torn from them,’ he told Reuters.
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Prisons Service spokesman said the prisoners were angered over the search, so they made accusations.
