GUANTANAMO BAY
Hunger-striking Guantánamo detainee is in danger, lawyers say
U.S. officials discounted reports by attorneys who claim a Guantánamo detainee who has been on a hunger strike for four years is near death.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- (AP) -- A Guantánamo Bay prisoner who has been on hunger strike for more than four years is in critical danger from malnutrition, his lawyers said Tuesday. U.S. officials insist his weight loss is not an immediate health risk.
Abdul Rahman Shalabi, who is fed liquid nutrients through a nasal tube, recently weighed 107 pounds, or 71 percent of the ideal body weight identified by medical authorities at the U.S. base in Cuba, his lawyers said in court papers filed this week in federal court in Washington.
``He's two pounds away from organ failure and death,'' attorney Julia Tarver Mason said.
Prison authorities say the situation is less severe, though they confirm the 33-year-old Saudi has lost weight.
Navy Capt. David Wright, a doctor who is the prison's chief medical officer, confirmed in an affidavit submitted to the court that Shalabi's weight had dropped to 107 pounds from 134 pounds in May and said military authorities were closely monitoring his health.
Shalabi's ``weight loss is concerning and if it continues, it would eventually be problematic,'' Wright said.
He said the prisoner's weight has fallen because he has refused to take more than 1,660 calories of liquid nutrients per day.
In a separate filing, lawyers for the government say that if Shalabi's weight drops below 105 pounds, the medical staff would ``intercede and increase his calorie intake.''
The lawyers have asked a judge to issue an emergency order for an independent medical specialist to be sent to the U.S. base to evaluate Shalabi and help develop a feeding plan that would restore his weight. U.S. officials insist he is getting adequate treatment and no expert is needed.
Thirty prisoners were on hunger strike at Guantánamo as recently as last week, but Shalabi has been refusing meals longer than any of them.
He was part of the original group that started a hunger strike in August 2005 as a protest against conditions and indefinite confinement. The protest eventually dwindled to just two men as prison officials, worried that strikers might starve to death, began strapping them down and feeding them by force. The other long-term striker, also a Saudi, was released in June.
Shalabi has been held at Guantánamo since January 2002 after his capture by Pakistani troops at the Afghanistan border.
The U.S. government says in court papers that the prisoner, who comes from a wealthy Saudi family, is suspected of being a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, but he has not been charged. He denies any affiliation with al Qaeda and his attorneys have been asking a court to return him to his country.
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