November 30, 2008	Sunday	Zilhaj 1, 1429

SAN JUAN (Puerto Rico), Nov 29: The health of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner on hunger strike for more than three years has deteriorated sharply, his lawyer said in legal papers seeking an independent medical examination.

Ahmed Zuhair appears to weigh no more than 100 pounds, more than 35 pounds less than the military says he weighed in August, attorney Ramzi Kassem said in a motion filed in federal court in Washington.

The military said in previous court documents that the 5-foot-5 Zuhair was about 137 pounds in August and in no immediate medical danger.

Kassem said in an affidavit that the prisoner also appeared to be ill, vomiting repeatedly during meetings on Nov 14-15 at the US base in Cuba.

“Mr Zuhair lifted his orange shirt and showed me his chest. It was skeletal,” Kassem said. “Mr Zuhair’s legs looked like bones with skin wrapped tight around them.”

Navy Cmdr Pauline Storum, a spokeswoman for the Guantanamo detention centre, said she could not immediately comment on Kassem’s statement, but said the US military was required to keep all detainees healthy and closely monitored those on hunger strike.

Zuhair has been on a hunger strike to protest his confinement since the summer of 2005. The military keeps him alive by force-feeding him liquid nutrients twice daily through a nasal tube.

Kassem, a Yale Law School lecturer, said his client was allergic to a corn-based liquid nutrient used to feed him, which causes him to vomit.

The attorney asked the court to order a halt to the use of the corn-based nutrient and to stop the use of a six-point restraint chair during force-feedings. Kassem says the restraints are painful and unnecessary. Zuhair was captured in Pakistan and held since June 2002 at Guantanamo. He has not been charged with a crime, although the US says he trained in Afghanistan and was a member of a fighting group in Bosnia in the mid-1990s.—AP