Omar Deghayes
Libyan

Mr Deghayes, 37, came to Britain as a child in the 1980s when his family fled Libya after his father, a trade union activist, was murdered by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

He has refugee status and went to school in Brighton before studying law at universities in Britain.

He went to Afghanistan in 2001 where he met and married his wife. After 9/11 he fled to Pakistan and in April 2002 he was arrested, handed over to the US authorities and transferred to Cuba. The US military alleged that he was an active terrorist and featured in a Chechen rebel propaganda video. But Mr Deghayes’s lawyers have argued that the man in the video was not him but another man who was killed in fighting in Chechnya.

It is also claimed that Mr Deghayes was blinded in one eye during a beating by guards at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Deghayes’s lawyers say that he was visited in Guantanamo by Libyan intelligence officials who threatened him with torture if he was returned to Tripoli rather than Britain. One is reported to have said: “You will be brought to judgment in Libya. When we bring you to Libya, I will personally teach you the meaning of this.”

Mr Deghayes has not yet been deemed fit for release by the US authorities.

Binyam Mohammed
Ethiopian

Mr Mohammed, 28, is an Ethiopian citizen who lived in North Kensington in London for seven years from 1994 to 2001. He has indefinite leave to remain in Britain and has family living in the United States.

Mr Mohammed converted to Islam while living in London and was persuaded by people he met at a mosque to visit Afghanistan. He was there when the USled invasion occurred and fled to Pakistan where he was arrested while trying to return to Britain using a false passport.

The legal charity Reprieve reports that Mr Mohammed was flown on a CIA “ghost plane” to Morocco in July 2002 and was subjected to 18 months of mental and physical abuse. He has told his lawyers that the tortures he underwent included the routine slashing of his penis with razor blades. His torturers would allow his wounds to heal before inflicting cuts again, he said.

He was moved to the so-called Dark Prison in Kabul in January 2004 and from there to Bagram airbase, then to Guantanamo Bay in September 2004.

Mr Mohammed is one of the few detainees to appear before a US military commission, where he was accused of attending an al-Qaeda training camp and receiving firearms, mortar and explosives training. He is further alleged to have been planning terrorist attacks against the United States. The commission hearings have been declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

Shaker Aamer
Saudi

Mr Aamer, 40, is a Saudi citizen who lived in Britain, where he has leave to remain, since 1996.

In 2001 he travelled to Taleban-controlled Afghanistan. He said that he went there to do charity work at a school. He is reported to have been captured by the Northern Alliance faction and “sold” to the Americans for $5,000 (£2,500).

He has told his lawyers that he suffered harsh torture at an American detention facility in Kabul before being flown to Guantanamo Bay.

In Camp Delta, Mr Aamer became a prominent spokesman for detainees’ rights and, for a period during the 2005 hunger strike, he was regularly consulted by the camp commanders, who nicknamed him “the Professor”.

Subsequent to the protest, however, Mr Aamer was placed in solitary confinement. His wife Zennira lives in London with the couple’s four children, the youngest of whom Mr Aamer has never seen. He has not yet been cleared for release by the US military.

Jamil el-Banna
Jordanian

Mr el-Banna, 40, is a Jordanian citizen who lived in London as a refugee for many years and has five children who are all British citizens. His eldest son wrote several letters to Tony Blair, then the Prime Minister, asking him to help to secure his father’s release.

Mr el-Banna was arrested in The Gambia along with his friend Bisher al-Rawi in November 2002 after MI5 tipped off the CIA that the two men were travelling from London to the West African country.

MI5 told the Americans that Mr el-Banna was “a veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war” and alleged that he had financial links to the Islamist extremist Abu Qatada. Just 24 hours before he left Britain, MI5 tried to recruit Mr el-Banna as an informant.

Mr el-Banna was transferred from Africa to the “Dark Prison” in Kabul where he alleges that he was tortured before being flown to Guantanamo Bay. He is reported to have suffered repeated ill-health in the internment camp.

Mr al-Rawi was released and allowed to return to Britain in March. Legal action to secure Mr el-Banna’s return added to the pressure on ministers to act over Guantanamo.

The US accused Mr el-Banna of being a member of al-Qaeda but recently classified him as fit for release.

Abdennour Sameur
Algerian

Mr Sameur, 34, is an Algerian army deserter who came to Britain in 1999 and lived in South Harrow, northwest London. He was granted refugee status in 2000.

He is reported to have travelled to Afghanistan after complaining that he found it hard to live as a good Muslim in Britain.

The US alleges that Mr Sameur is a veteran jihadi who travelled to Afghanistan with financial backing from Finsbury Park mosque.

He was reportedly captured by Pakistani forces in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan while in the company of 150 men, many of them Arab fighters.

Mr Sameur is said to have admitted prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks, although he later claimed that this confession was forced out of him by his US captors who said they would not treat his wounded leg unless he cooperated with them.

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