GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, March 3 (UPI) -- A Kuwaiti man held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, charges that force-feeding of hunger strikers amounts to torture.
Fawzi al-Odah, who has been held at the base since 2002, said in an interview with the BBC, that hunger strikers were strapped to a chair and force-fed through a tube three times a day.
Odah was one of 84 inmates at Guantanamo who went on a hunger strike in December. Four of the detainees are still on the hunger strike.
His remarks came as a U.S. judge prepared to hear a call to ban force-feeding. A senior official in the U.S. State Department denied the administration was using torture on detainees at the Cuban facility.
The action is the first test for a law, signed by U.S. President George Bush in December, explicitly outlawing torture of terrorism suspects.