PHOENIX (AP) - Authorities have won court orders to force-feed a Russian immigrant who has staged a hunger strike at an immigration detention center in Arizona as he awaits his removal back to his native country.
Judge Steven Logan wrote in an order Monday that the fasting started by Eugenii Glushchenko on June 19 could lead to permanent organ damage and possibly death.
Authorities say Glushchenko has offered two reasons for the strike - either he isn't hungry or he's not eating until he is released from detention.
Glushchenko's attorneys say their client doesn't have a death wish, but instead the fasting is the consequence of a failure to care for his medical conditions, which aren't specified in court filings, that he believes are affecting his ability to eat.