US will not release hunger-striking Guantánamo detainee

Ba Odah's case was seen by detainees’ lawyers as an indicator of how committed President Barack Obama is to his goal of transferring all the detainees and closing the Guantánamo facility before he leaves office.

Ba Odah’s attorney with legal advocacy group The Center for Constitutional Rights, Omar Farah, said in a press release that the government's response, delivered to his organization by the Obama administration was "under seal." 

“We cannot comment on its substance,” Farah said. “However, we are deeply disappointed by this secret filing.  It is a transparent attempt to hide the fact that the Obama administration’s interagency process for closing Guantánamo is an incoherent mess, and it is plainly intended to conceal the inconsistency between the administration’s stated intention to close Guantánamo and the steps taken to transfer cleared men.”

Farah told Al Jazeera days before the decision that the Department of Defense was also behind the opposition to his client’s release.

“It appears, from public sources, that the Department of Defense has dug in its heals and is defiantly blocking a commonsense solution that could get this man to medical care. It’s shocking.”

The Department of Defense was not immediately available for comment.

Ba Odah has been force-fed by nasal tube since he stopped eating solid food in 2007. His weight loss over the last 18 months raised fears among his lawyers that he could die of starvation. Pentagon officials said he was receiving proper care.

U.S. intelligence and military officials cleared Ba Odah for release five years ago from the Guantánamo detention center, where 116 men are imprisoned on a U.S. Navy base in Cuba 14 years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Al Jazeera and Reuters