U.S. judge may order medical exam for Guantanamo hunger striker

By Ian Simpson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawyers for a Guantanamo Bay detainee whose weight has dropped to 74 pounds (33.4-kg) during his long hunger strike argued in U.S. court on Thursday he should be freed for health reasons, and a judge said he may order an independent medical exam.

During a hearing, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said he would examine whether he can order the creation of a civilian-military medical commission to examine Tariq Ba Odah, a 36-year-old Yemeni man, under the Geneva Convention governing treatment of prisoners of war.

Its findings could help determine if Ba Odah should be freed.

Lack of an independent examination "makes it very difficult for me to conclude that he has to be released for other medical treatment," Hogan said.

Ba Odah, who American officials call a former al Qaeda fighter, has been held at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base in Cuba since February 2002. U.S. intelligence and military officials cleared him for release in 2010 but he is still being held.

Defense attorney Omar Farah said Ba Odah weighed only as much as an average 10-year-old American child and was close to death. Ba Odah has been on a hunger strike and has been force-fed by U.S. personnel at Guantanamo since 2007.

A Justice Department lawyer, Ronald Wiltsie, said Ba Odah has repeatedly refused medical assistance and his condition was self-inflicted. Releasing him could encourage other prisoners to engage in hunger strikes, Wiltsie added.

Farah said Ba Odah should be freed under a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Guantanamo Bay prisoners have the right to challenge their detention as "enemy combatants." Defense lawyers filed a petition for him to be released in June.

Wiltsie said the court ruling and other decisions did not apply to Ba Odah as a former al Qaeda fighter.

Farah said after the hearing that the U.S. government's policy was "totally incoherent" since President Barack Obama has sought to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the State Department was looking for countries to take in detainees who would be transferred from the Guantanamo.

At the same time, the Pentagon and the Justice Department are blocking releases, Farah said.

There are 114 men detained at the Guantanamo Bay facility, which was opened to hold foreign terrorism suspects in the aftermath of al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Will Dunham)

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