Court plea to force government petition for Guantanamo release

Three British residents detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay will ask the High Court for orders requiring Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to petition for their release. Lawyers for the three and their families argue that allegations of torture being practised at the detention facility in Cuba mean the British Government is obliged to act on their behalf.

The Government says that as foreign nationals Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes have no legal right to the assistance available to British citizens. Mr Justice Collins, who ruled recently that the case was "arguable" and should go to a full hearing, commented when giving leave that America's idea of what constituted torture "is not the same as ours and doesn't appear to coincide with that of most civilised countries".

Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Tugendhat, sitting in London, will consider the full application for judicial review at a hearing expected to last three days. The Government's counsel, Philip Sales, is expected to argue that it is only through the medium of their nationality that persons can seek to enjoy the obligations placed on a state by international law.

The three detainees were long-term residents of the UK, although not British citizens. Mr al-Rawi, 37, an Iraqi national who had lived in Britain since 1985, and his Jordanian business partner Mr el-Banna, who was granted refugee status in 2000, were detained three years ago in Gambia - "far from any theatre of war", says their QC, Rabinder Singh. They were alleged to have been associated with al Qaida through their connection with the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada.

But Mr Singh is expected to argue that Mr al-Rawi's contact with Qatada was "expressly approved and encouraged by British intelligence" to whom he supplied information about the cleric.

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