MPs have defended the Government's refusal to stand up for Omar Deghayes and eight other British residents detained in Guantanamo Bay.

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, in a report published yesterday, said: "The Government is right to stick to its established policy of not accepting consular responsibility for non-British nationals."

The committee's decision to back the Government's inaction came despite its assessment that "abuse of detainees in Guantanamo Bay has almost certainly taken place".

The Argus is campaigning for justice for Mr Deghayes, whose family lives in Saltdean, Brighton.

Mr Deghayes, himself a former Brighton resident, has spent more than four years in the military camp in Cuba without being charged with any offence.

Amnesty International has described the prison as "the gulag of our times".

The committee's report, Visit To Guantanamo Bay, followed a tour of the base last September by seven MPs - the first members of a national parliament other than the US Congress to go there.

Their report, while referring to US President George Bush's apparent desire to close the controversial prison camp, offered a bleak assessment of the chances of this happening in the near future.

It said: "The US ... believes it will need to continue to detain the remaining 330 detainees for as long as the war on terror' continues, or until they no longer present a severe threat."

The construction of new prisons on the base suggested "the camp will not be closing in the near future", it added.

The MPs recommended the Government "engage actively" with the US Administration and the international community "to assist the process of closing Guantanamo as soon as may be consistent with the overriding need to protect the public from terrorist threats".

Committee chairman Mike Gapes, a Labour MP, denied the report was a defence of the status quo.

He told The Argus: "Families and campaigners should continue to do what they are doing" to secure justice for Mr Deghayes.

Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty International, described the report as "a missed opportunity".

She said: "Guantanamo Bay is a travesty of justice and it's important that respected bodies like the foreign affairs committee say so loudly and clearly.

"We would have liked to have seen the committee unequivocally backing Amnesty International's long-standing call for Guantanamo to be closed immediately.

"We also disagree with the committee's line that the UK is justified in turning its back on at least eight long-term residents of this country, including people like Omar Deghayes and Jamil el-Banna."