At about 155 pounds, the Syrian prisoner is gaunt for a man over 6 feet tall. He is pale and weak, so lethargic at times that one of his lawyers said he had to lie on the floor when he met with her one day this summer at the prison on the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The hunger strike that Abu Wa’el Dhiab, 43, started 18 months ago to protest his indefinite confinement without charge was supposed to be over by now. He was told in the spring he would be resettled in Uruguay, along with five other Guantánamo prisoners. But as the months have dragged on and the transfer put on hold, his standoff with military officials has only deteriorated, at times turning violent.
