WASHINGTON, 20 November 2005 — The lawyer for a detainee at the US military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba said Friday that his hunger-striking client was in “imminent danger” of death or serious organ damage despite being force-fed.
Washington lawyer Thomas Wilner said Kuwaiti detainee Fawzi Al-Odah has been losing weight even though his US military captors have been force-feeding him through a nose tube since early September, several weeks after Odah, 27, launched his hunger strike on Aug. 8.
“The time we went down (to Guantanamo) in October, he had gone to 112 pounds (51 kilograms), and now in November he was down to 98 pounds (44.5 kilograms),” said Wilner, who returned from the prison on Nov. 7.
“Whether they are not doing it adequately or competently, I don’t know, but the continued weight loss shows that something is wrong,” Wilner said.
Wilner said he obtained the weight information during his last visit, during which Odah passed the lawyer his own medical files.
Wilner said he did not know how the detainee had obtained the files, which Wilner showed to doctors to assess Odah’s condition.
“According to the doctors we have consulted with, his continuous weight loss shows that their force-feeding is not working and he is in imminent danger of dying or at least suffering permanent organ damage.” Wilner said he had received information recently suggesting Odah has regained about one pound.
However, he said that he can only determine his client’s health in monthly visits to the US Navy prison facility.
“I don’t know today how he is because the government does not give medical records. So I can only discover how he is each time I am able to go down there.”
Out of an estimated 35 Guantanamo detainees on a hunger strike in mid-November to protest prison conditions, 24 are being force-fed by tubes or intravenously, according to Pentagon data recently obtained by Newsweek magazine.
