Reduced to Just 75 lbs, DOJ says Gitmo Hunger Striker "Not Sick" Enough for Hospitalization

The U.S. Department of Justice has argued to a federal judge that a hunger-striking Guantánamo inmate who weighs just 74 pounds “is not sick enough” to be hospitalized and that his petition for release must be rejected because, if granted, it could encourage other detainees to also starve themselves to near death in protest of their endless detention at the offshore prison.

According to new reporting by the Miami Herald‘s Carol Rosenberg, citing a recently unsealed court filing, the DOJ argued that Tariq Ba Odah, who has been held at the U.S. Navy-run prison for over 13 years without charge or trial, should be held longer even as his weight has dropped from 135 pounds, when he first started his strike in 2007, to approximately 74 pounds as of July 15 — just 56 percent of his ideal body weight.

Ba Odah is among those who have been force-fed as a result of their multi-year hunger strike. Doctors and human rights experts have called the force-feeding process a form of torture.

In June, Rosenberg reports, Ba Odah’s lawyers wrote to a fedeal judge that their client “teeters on the precipice of death — his body struggling, but ultimately failing, to properly absorb the liquid nutrients he is being force fed.”

The DOJ, however, countered by saying the man was solely responsible for his condition, brought about by his voluntary refusal to eat. The government cast his “underlying medical condition” as “self-inflicted” and said his “current possible consequences are all due to his seven-year hunger strike.” 

Citing the court filing, Rosenberg continued: