Juma'a Mohammed al-Dossary, 32 and a Bahrain national, pulled out stitches in his arm for the second time and was hospitalized last Monday, according to a letter read by his attorney Saturday. The letter said al-Dossary also cut his bicep, but did not specify how he did so.

"The Guantanamo staff immediately intervened," Justice Department lawyer Edward H. White wrote. "He has been treated and is currently in stable condition."

Al-Dossary's attorney, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, has requested a court order easing conditions for al-Dossary, who has been detained at Guantanamo Bay since February 2002. Al-Dossary has not yet been charged.

Colangelo-Bryan released declassified notes from the last meeting with his client before the suicide attempt. Colangelo-Bryan said al-Dossary told him that "he wanted to kill himself so that he could send a message to the world that conditions at Guantanamo are intolerable.”

Al-Dossary has attempted suicide at least nine times before. Doctors at the base say he in mentally ill and will not take medications or work with therapists on his condition.

Officials at Guantanamo, where the U.S. holds some 500 men described as terror suspects, did not immediately respond Saturday to an e-mail request from the Associated Press for an update on the al-Dossary's condition. No one answered the phones at the base's press office.