By Robert Bocziekiewicz
DENVER (Reuters) - One day after court documents disclosed that convicted "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid has been refusing food, federal authorities said on Wednesday they were lifting special restrictions on him at a U.S. prison.
The decision appears to give Reid what he is seeking in a lawsuit challenging the restrictions, which he claims prevent him from practicing his Sunni Muslim faith. Justice Department officials did not say, however, why they were lifting them.
Reid, 35, is serving three life sentences at the Supermax prison at Florence, Colorado, for trying to blow up a jetliner over the Atlantic in 2001. Court documents made public on Tuesday showed he had been refusing food for several weeks.
He began a hunger strike in March or early April and has been force-fed and hydrated, the court papers showed.
A Justice Department spokesman said the restrictions, known as "Special Administrative Measures," expire June 17. Earlier, the department had asserted to the judge overseeing the lawsuit that the restrictions were necessary for security reasons.
The Justice Department has imposed special restrictions, intended to protect against terrorism and violence, at several federal prisons on inmates convicted of terrorism.
The restrictions include denying visits that other inmates are allowed to have and greater-than-normal controls on written and telephone conversations with attorneys and other persons outside the prisons.
The disclosure that the special restrictions will not be renewed was made by the Justice Department in a new two-paragraph filing in U.S. District Court in Denver in the case involving Reid's lawsuit.
Reid claims he has been under special restrictions from the time he arrived at Supermax in February 2003. His lawsuit asserts the restrictions include prohibiting group prayer with other Muslim inmates, a bar on contacting journalists and limiting access to a Muslim religious figure known as an imam.
In defence of denying group prayer, the Justice Department said inmates Reid might pray with were co-conspirators of the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. A leader of that attack, Ramzi Yousef, is a Supermax inmate.
(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Philip Barbara)
