A campaign to secure justice for a detainee at Guantanamo Bay is going to the European Parliament.

The case of Omar Deghayes, a 36-year-old lawyer from Saltdean, who has been imprisoned in the Cuban military base for three years, will be heard by Euro MPs and human rights organisations later this month.

Jackie Chase, 48, of Grantham Road, Brighton, who is a leading campaigner for Mr Deghayes, plans to address the European Network for Peace and Human Rights conference being held at the Parliament on October 20 and 21.

She will also meet MEPs individually to encourage them to lobby their governments to put pressure on the US to end the legal limbo of Guantanamo.

Mrs Chase also plans to visit the United States ambassador in Brussels to request that a family member and a doctor be given visitation rights to Guantanamo Bay immediately, in order to find out what physical condition Mr Deghayes is in.

The prisoner is in his eighth week of a hunger strike, along with more than 200 of the inmates. More than a dozen are being force-fed with a drip and although the Americans would not say what condition individual inmates are in, Mr Deghayes' lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith believes his client is among the most seriously sick.

Caroline Lucas, a Green party principal speaker and MEP, hopes to accompany Mrs Chase and formally address members of the Parliament, as well as see the United States ambassador in her official capacity.

Mrs Chase is appealing for funds to pay for her travel and accommodation in Brussels. She said: "I don't have a lot of money but I think this trip could be a major boost for Omar's campaign and it is vital that someone goes to speak on the campaign's behalf."

Mr Deghayes is a Libyan refugee whose family fled to the UK in the Eighties after their father was assassinated for political reasons.

Although Mr Deghayes' mother, brothers and sister hold British passports, Mr Deghayes does not and so the Government has so far said it is unable to intervene in his case.

The Argus' Justice for Omar campaign has already generated hundreds of messages of support, which we delivered to the Home Office on Monday.