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Reprieve: Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abu Wa'el Dhiab 'in urgent need of independent medical attention'

Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abu Wa’el Dhiab is in deteriorating health and needs urgent independent medical examination, a lawyer for prisoners’ rights group Reprieve said yesterday.

Cori Crider has filed a request seeking an independent medical evaluation for Mr Dhiab and expects a judge to respond this week.

Mr Dhiab has been cleared for release since 2009 and has been on hunger strike since February 2013 with only a brief interruption earlier this year when he thought he was going home.

“He is just withering as a human being,” said Ms Crider, adding that she became concerned after meeting him last week. 

“He was a skeleton. He’s just lying flat on the ground because he doesn’t have the strength.”

Mr Dhiab is one of six prisoners the US agreed to resettle in Uruguay but, five years later, he has not been released.

He also is seeking an end to force-feeding and is awaiting a ruling on the case. The procedure was banned before but later reinstated to protect him from starvation.

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