Only Obama can stop Gitmo force-feeding - US judge

(RT) A US district judge has ruled that she would be overstepping her authority by issuing an injunction against force-feeding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, saying that only President Obama has the necessary authority to stop the practice.

“Every competent patient has the right to refuse medical intervention, including life-sustaining interventions,” wrote Dr. Lazarus.
Judge Gladys Kessler issued the ruling in response to an injunction request made on behalf of inmate Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian national who was cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo by the Obama administration in 2009 but who has been held at the detention center for over a decade without charge or trial; he remains at the camp.

"It would seem to follow," Judge Kessler wrote, that President Obama had the authority "to directly address the issue of force-feeding the detainees."

Dhiab had "set out in great detail in his papers what appears to be a consensus" that force-feeding does indeed violate international law, added Kessler.

Regardless, in her four-page ruling Kessler wrote that the Obama administration had argued that the court did not have sufficient jurisdiction to intervene in cases concerning detention or treatment of alleged enemy combatants.

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