UK & Guantanamo: A Shocking Betrayal That Shames Our Government

The release of Jamil el-Banna, a British resident held for the past four years at Guantanamo, is apparently being complicated because the British authorities refuse to allow him back. And on what grounds are they refusing? He is deemed to have forfeited his "indefinite leave to remain" by staying abroad for more than two years.

Now we know that the US administration had Camp Delta rebuilt and loses no opportunity to praise conditions there. We also know that it complies with some aspects - it decides which -of the Geneva Conventions. But Guantanamo is not exactly Club Med. It is a prison camp in an unpleasant climate zone, which exists - despite the best efforts of human rights campaigners and the US Supreme Court - in a judicial limbo.

For the British to argue that this period of involuntary detention annuls his asylum status is ridiculous. The suspicion must be that something more sinister than bureaucratic folly lies behind it. Was it that they were casting around for a pretext to keep Mr Banna out of Britain and this was the best they could come up with? And is it then their intention that he should be forced to return to Jordan, the country he fled more than 10 years ago? If so, the decision is not merely ridiculous, but cynical, immoral and unjust.

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