A Jordanian jailed for 45 years for plotting to blow up an Israeli airliner by sending his pregnant Irish girlfriend on board with a bomb in her luggage today lost a legal battle for early release.

The landmark case - which confirms the Home Secretary's right to refuse parole to a specific group of foreign prisoners - reverses the recent trend towards stripping away the Home Secretary's powers over individual prisoners.

Nezar Hindawi was convicted at the Old Bailey in 1986 of trying to blow up an El Al flight from London to Israel with 375 people on board.

He hid the timer bomb in the hand luggage of his girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child and had no idea he had set her up. Hindawi told her he would marry her when she got to Israel. He was not on the flight. A security official found the device before the girlfriend boarded the aircraft.

The case prompted Britain to break off diplomatic relations with Syria, which it accused of complicity in the plot. Syrian government agents recruited Hindawi as a terrorist on behalf of the Palestinian cause, the court was told. His sentence of 45 years is believed to be the longest specific jail term ever imposed by an English court.

After he became eligible to be considered for parole in April 2001, having served one third of his sentence, his solicitors wrote to the Home Secretary in July 2002 arguing for early release.

They included a report showing that the Syrian government no longer supported "radical, revolutionary or violent policies", and Hindawi no longer presented a risk of further offending.

But in April 2003 Mr Blunkett refused to refer his case to the parole board. The Home Secretary said that reports on Hindawi's progress in jail did not demonstrate that he had "victim empathy", sufficient insight into the causes of his offending, or strategies to prevent further offending.

In January, the High Court in London gave Hindawi leave to appeal against this refusal. Mr Justice McCombe ruled that the Home Secretary's refusal amounted to discrimination on the grounds of nationality, in breach of article 14 of the European convention on human rights.

British nationals serving similar fixed sentences are entitled to a parole board review after they have served a proportion of their jail term, as are foreign nationals who do not face deportation after their sentence is up. It is only those subject to deportation - as Hindawi is - whose release date is decided by the Home Secretary alone.

Mr Justice McCombe had rejected Mr Blunkett's argument that he was "better placed" than the board to consider which prisoners liable to deportation should be released.

He also ruled that the Home Secretary had failed to take into account changes in the political climate in Syria that, it was argued, meant Hindawi no longer posed a risk.

The Home Office protested, and was granted leave in its turn to appeal against the High Court ruling. Mr Blunkett said he was unconvinced that Hindawi had a case for early release.

Today, judges at the Court of Appeal upheld Mr Blunkett's challenge, quashing Hindawi's right to appeal for parole.

Lord Justice Kennedy, giving the Appeal Court's majority decision, said that the discrimination claimed was over Article 5 - the right to freedom. But Hindawi's case was not covered by this right and he therefore could not rely on the article outlawing discrimination, said Lord Justice Kennedy.

Lord Justice Sedley agreed that Mr Blunkett's appeal should be allowed. Lord Justice Neuberger said that it was difficult not to agree that the right to early release under licence did engage Article 5, but he said he would allow Mr Blunkett’s appeal because of the adequacy of the reasons he gave for refusing Hindawi’s early release.

Liberty, the human rights campaign group, has criticised the practice of treating certain groups of prisoners differently from others.

Barry Hugill, a spokesman, said that the campaign group had not been involved in Hindawi's case but that it involved an important principle.

"Our general position on all these matters is that we think there should be equality of treatment across all prisoners, and there shouldn't be groups that are picked out," he said.

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