Guantanamo Bay families in appeal

BBC | July 24 2006

The families of three British residents held in Guantanamo Bay without trial are launching an appeal to try to get the government to secure their release.

Libyan-born Omar Deghayes, 37, from Brighton, Jordanian Jamil el-Banna and Iraqi Bisher al-Rawi, both from London, have been detained since 2002.

Lawyers for their families will argue for their release from the US-run camp in Cuba at London's Appeal Court.

A High Court challenge was dismissed in May because they are not UK citizens.
'Degrading treatment'

Judges had been asked to declare that the men, although foreign nationals, were long-term UK residents entitled to help similar to that received by British citizens freed from Guantanamo in 2004 and 2005.

However, they said they could not interfere with a Foreign Office decision that it could not provide diplomatic protection to non-citizens.

Human rights lawyers acting for the families have said there is "compelling evidence" that the detainees have "suffered inhuman and degrading treatment" at the camp.

Mr al-Rawi and his friend Mr el-Banna were arrested in November 2002 during a business trip to Gambia, on suspicion of having links to terrorism.

Mr Deghayes was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and accused of committing terrorist acts against the US.

He fled Libya for the UK in the 1980s after his father was assassinated and applied for British citizenship.

The men's relatives, many of whom are British, deny the trio have any links to terrorism.