The terror suspect known as "C" has been freed after being interned under the Government’s anti-terror legislation for more than three years, Home Office sources said today.

It was understood that Home Secretary Charles Clarke would explain his decision in a statement to MPs later today.

C is an Egyptian national who was detained in December 2001. In October 2003, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission - the independent panel which hears appeals from foreign terror suspects detained under the emergency laws - concluded that the Government had "reasonable grounds" to suspect that he had a "senior leadership role in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the United Kingdom".

Siac chairman Mr Justice Ouseley said in July last year that there were reasonable grounds for the belief that C was engaged in support activities for terrorists. The judgment added: "He would still have the will, commitment and ability to resume his activities in the UK were he to be released."

It is understood that C was freed yesterday. His current whereabouts are not known.

News of his release comes just 24 hours after another detainee - Jordanian-born Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh - was granted bail by Siac because indefinite detention had worsened his psychiatric problems.

C’s solicitor, Natalia Garcia, said that the decision to release her client yesterday had come as a complete surprise. She said that Mr Clarke had even submitted a statement to the court for the review hearing tomorrow saying that C was still a risk and that he should remain in detention.

"It came completely out of the blue," she told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One programme. "We were in the court in the morning, where we heard the solicitor of the Home Secretary say that the only conditions of release he would accept would be house arrest - and then by late afternoon I got a phone call to say that my client was about to be released with no conditions at all.

"By seven o’clock in the evening he was a completely free man. It is completely bizarre. We were given no indication in court that this was going to happen.

"In effect the Home Secretary has now admitted that C is no danger to anyone at all, which is what we’ve said from the very beginning, but it has taken three years and his life has been decimated in the meantime."

She said that she had only been able to speak briefly to C since his release. "He was delighted to be released but very perplexed and confused about the whole situation and couldn’t understand why he had been interned for three years on the basis of nothing at all and suddenly released," she said

In a further development, the Home Office yesterday formally dropped his objections to all 11 men currently interned without trial being granted bail by SIAC, providing strict bail conditions can be agreed.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth