When he stepped on to the tarmac of RAF Northolt this morning, Binyam Mohamed ended the long fight for freedom and began another struggle — to reclaim a normal life.

His first move now that he is back in Britain will be to go "somewhere really quiet and away from everyone", his British lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said. Although Mr Mohamed has no family left in this country, his sister Zuhra, an American citizen, is in Britain to meet him.

After seven years in captivity, Mr Mohamed is likely to find it hard to adjust to freedom. Previous detainees returning to Britain from Guantánamo have taken up to a month before they feel able to leave a safe house.

As well as the psychological scars, Mr Mohamed is suffering the after effects of a month on hunger strike. "The last time I saw Mr Mohamed he was in pretty poor shape," his US military lawyer, Lieutenant-Colonel Yvonne Bradley, said this morning.

Once he has begun to recover, Mr Mohamed is not likely to stay quiet. He is already thought to be considering a book about his experiences and even before he touched down he issued a statement that affirmed his determination to speak out on behalf of those still in Guantánmo.

"I wish I could say that it is all over, but it is not. There are still 241 Muslim prisoners in Guantánamo. Many have long since been cleared even by the US military but cannot go anywhere as they face persecution," he said.

"For example, Ahmed bel Bacha lived here in Britain and desperately needs a new home,"

All the other British citizens and residents who have returned from Guantánamo have begun claims for compensation from the British Government and Mr Mohammed is likely to do the same.

Though the process is described as a long one, others returning from Guantánamo have managed to rebuild their lives. Moazzam Begg, a Briton who returned in 2005, is now a prominent campaigner.

Jamil el-Banna, a Jordanian who returned to Britain in 2007, works as a translator. Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi released in 2007, volunteers for Reprieve, a legal charity. His wife gave birth to a son a week ago.

Ruhal Ahmed, a Briton who was released from Guantánamo in 2004, says that he has struggled to find work.

"When I apply for jobs, people see the gap — 2001 to 2004 — in my experience," he said in an interview last summer. "They ask about it. Am I supposed to lie? They'll find out, sooner or later. So I tell the truth, which is when they say, 'We've got your information. We'll be in touch.' Sometimes they are, to tell me no."

Though he has lived in Britain since the age of 15, Binyam Mohamed has never been granted British citizenship. He arrived in Britain as a refugee from Ethiopia in 1994 and later worked as a caretaker. He converted to Islam and travelled in Pakistan in summer 2001, he says, to beat a drug addiction and to see the Muslim world with his own eyes.

He was detained by the Americans in Pakistan in 2002 and after four months was rendered by the CIA to Morocco in July of that year, his lawyers say. There he was tortured for 18 months, he says, with the British Government supplying information and questions to the torturers.

In 2004 he was taken first to Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo, where he was held for more than four years.

Back in Britain, he has agreed to be subject to "voluntary security arrangements with the British Government", Mr Stafford Smith said, but would not give details.

The lawyer said that he was “absolutely” convinced of his client's innocence. "If anyone wants to put him on trial, in the immortal words of George Bush, bring them on,” he said.

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