The Sydney Morning Herald revives the Koran in the toilet?

The Saturday Sydney Morning Herald print edition ran an article on Guantanamo Bay attributed to Con Coughlin from the Telegraph in London.

This line from the Sydney Morning Herald (sorry, no link seems available) caught my attention:

It is during incidents such as this that the guards have responded in controversial ways, such as the infamous incident of a Koran being flushed down a prison lavatory. But the guards are under instructions not to retaliate.

Strange, I thought, wasn't it well established that this was, at most, an allegation that the Pentagon strongly denied? Indeed, I was correct. In fact, when I searched the Telegraph to find the original article, I first found this one from last year, which notes that :

Southern Command said the inquiry had found five cases of "mishandling" of a Koran by US personnel, but no evidence it had ever been flushed down a toilet....

In the statement, Brig Gen Jay Hood, commander of the Guantanamo prison, said the inquiry found "no credible evidence" that a member of the military joint task force at Guantanamo ever flushed a Koran down a toilet. "The matter is considered closed," he stated.

Well, that Con Coughlin guy must be very slack, I thought, forgetting that his own paper reported how this was only ever an allegation hotly denied by the Pentagon. Furthermore, in this current climate of, shall we say, high excitability by Muslims, this is one allegation you don't lightly revive. (The Telegraph article I just quoted also noted that "at least 16" people had died in Afghanistan during rioting related to this story.)

But then I found the original Con Coughlin article which the SMH reprinted. Here is what the Telegraph web version actually says:

It is during incidents such as this that the guards have responded in controversial ways, such as abusing the Koran (the famous incident of a Koran being flushed down a prison lavatory is alleged to occurred during one such confrontation.) But fearful of a repetition of the prisoner abuse that occurred at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, the guards are under instructions not to retaliate.

"We have investigated 15 allegations of abuse against the camp guards," said a Guantanamo official. "Only five of them have been upheld, and the appropriate action has been taken against the guards."

For your convenience, the parts in bold are those left out by the SMH. What a difference an editor can make, deleting all reference to the words "alleged" and "investigation".

Of course, it is possible that the SMH lifted an earlier version of the article which appears now on the Telegraph website. I am not aware of any quick and easy way of checking.

But if that is not the explanation, this would be a pretty appalling example of editing designed to re-establish a hotly disputed and inflammatory allegation into fact.

UPDATE: In last night's version of this, the quote from the print version of the SMH was given as referring to "the famous incident"; but on re-reading the post this morning, I am pretty sure (without having the print paper with me at the moment) that it was actually "infamous incident". I have therefore amended the post, but will double check later today. Doesn't make any real difference to the issue.