Testimony of the Officer in Charge of the Hospital

Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad al Odah et al. vs United States of America et al.
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Civil Action No. 02-828 (CKK)
Memorandum of Opinion
September 30, 2005

At 4:30 PM on September 13, 2005, the Court held a conference call on the record with counsel for the Government and three military officers, including the physician who serves as the Officer-in-Charge³ of the [Guantanamo] detention hospital. The doctor indicated that he was personally familiar with Fawzi Al Odah and Abdulazziz Al Shammari. Tr. 7: 17-20. He stated that Mr. Al Odah had been on a hunger strike since August 8, 2005, and had lost about ten percent of his body weight, placing his weight at about eighty percent of his ideal body weight. Tr. 8:1-10. On September 4, 2005, the medical staff had started tube feeding Mr. Al Odah, a procedure which the doctor indicated was still taking place at the time of the hearing. Tr. 8:12-14. The tube feeding, which was involuntary, consisted of a tube passing through Mr. Al Odah's nose into his stomach, allowing the medical staff to infuse the nutritional formula through the tube and into his stomach. Tr. 9:15-18 ("He is receiving what we call involuntary feeding, ma'am. He has a – into his nose into his stomach and then we are infusing nutritional formula into his stomach directly.") […] The doctor stated that Mr. Al Odah's treatment plan was scheduled to be modified on the following Thursday morning to allow Mr. Al Odah to receive feeding twice per day on an outpatient basis at the hospital, rather than requiring him to remain in the hospital at all times. Tr. 10-1-10.

With respect to Abdulazziz Al Shammari, the doctor indicated that he had been on a hunger strike since August 4, 2005, and had lost about five percent of his body weight, leaving him at aboput seventy-nine percent of his ideal weight. Tr. 11:11-14. Mr. Al Shammari was being fed twice per day at the hospital on an outpatient basis. Tr 11:16-18.