US, lawyers concerned as Guantanamo’s longest hunger striker loses weight

Guantanamo hunger striker losing weight

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A Guantanamo 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 (49 kilograms), 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 in an interview.

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 (49 kilograms) from 134 pounds (61 kilograms) 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 (48 kilograms), the medical staff would “intercede and increase his calorie intake.”

A spokesperson for the prison did not immediately respond Tuesday to questions about Shalabi’s current weight.

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 Guantanamo 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 Guantanamo since January 2002 following 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-Qaida and his attorneys have been asking a court to return him to his country.

When he came to Guantanamo, the prisoner, who is 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 meters) tall, weighed 134 pounds (61 kilograms) — or 89 percent of his ideal body weight.

His lawyers say that to avoid the pain of inserting and reinserting the feeding tube, authorities have agreed to leave it in for three days at a time and allow him to go without the liquid nutrients for the fourth day — a feeding plan that his attorneys cite as a factor in his weight loss.

Dr. Sondra Crosby, a Boston-based specialist in internal medicine who has examined Shalabi as consultant for the defense, said there are other potential causes for his weight loss that include hyperthyroidism, cancer or some type of infection.

“It is uncontested that Mr. Shalabi needs to be fed more calories, otherwise he will die,” Crosby, a professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, said in an affidavit with the court.