Guantanamo Detainee Fit To Travel-British Diplomat

British officials, including a doctor, visited Binyam Mohamed, who has been on hunger strike since January, on Saturday.

A British resident held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay is well enough to travel to Britain if a request to release him is approved, the Foreign Office (FCO) said on Sunday.

British officials, including a doctor, visited Binyam Mohamed, who has been on hunger strike since January, on Saturday.

"They also met with medical staff at the facility. There are no immediate medical concerns that would prevent him from travelling to the UK, should the United States government agree to the UK's request for release and return," the FCO said in a statement.

"We hope this brings Mr Mohamed's release and return to the UK one step closer."

Mohamed has been in custody for five years. His U.S. military lawyer said he had lost so much weight that his health was at risk and he was being force fed.

"I was totally shocked by his condition," she told members of Britain's parliament and the media, saying she had last seen him on Jan. 28. "I have serious concerns that he could die," Lieutenant-Colonel Yvonne Bradley said on Wednesday.

The visit follows a move by U.S. President Barack Obama to prioritise a review of Mohamed's case and could lay the ground for Mohamed, who says he was tortured by foreign agents while in U.S. detention, to be returned to Britain.

Mohamed, an Ethiopian national, was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002. He says he was then flown to Morocco on a CIA plane and held for 18 months, during which he says he was repeatedly tortured, including having his penis cut with a knife.

Morocco has denied holding him. He was transferred to Afghanistan in 2004 and later moved to Guantanamo, U.S. authorities have said. Washington denies that he was subjected to rendition or torture.

One of Obama's first acts as president was to announce that Guantanamo, widely viewed as a stain on the United States' human rights record, would be shut down.

The prison was set up at a U.S. military base in Cuba to hold captives from the "war on terror" launched after the Sept.11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Mohamed's case has attracted widespread publicity in Britain because U.S. legal authorities have fought to prevent evidence being released that his lawyers say shows he was tortured. The evidence is contained in documents held in Britain.

Britain's high court ruled last week the evidence should not be released as it could lead to reduced intelligence cooperation with the United States and prejudice Britain's national security.