WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US government continues to oppose the discharge of Saudi Arabian citizen Ba Odah from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility even though he was cleared to be released and is nearing death as a result of being on a hunger strike, Odah’s attorney Omar Farah told Sputnik.
"The Obama administration not only remains unmoved by the gravity of Mr. Ba Odah’s health and the potentially tragic consequences of inaction, but is actively working against the very thing it claims it is trying to achieve — Mr. Ba Odah’s release," Farah said on Monday.
Medical experts have stated that Ba Odah, who weighs just 74 pounds, is near death and unable to gain weight despite being force-fed by US authorities up to 2600 calories daily.
"The government is bending over backwards to defend a principle: that Mr. Ba Odah, who is cleared for release, can be warehoused in solitary conditions at Guantanamo, kept alive by force-feeding only to prolong his detention, so that the government can release him at its sole discretion — if it ever chooses to do so," Farah noted.
Farah concluded the fate of Odah’s life now rests within the power of the US Supreme Court as to whether he might get released or not.
"The Supreme Court positioned the courts as a safety-valve for men like Mr. Ba Odah, for whom this is a matter of life and death, and it is now up to the judge to order the government to finally release him and put an end to over 13 years of indefinite detention," Farah said.
On Thursday, the CCR said that Odah must be let go from Guantanamo because he is entitled to humanitarian release under the Geneva Conventions.
