Omar MP's meeting with Straw by Miriam Wells Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is to meet Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Deghayes' MP.

The minister will meet Des Turner, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, who represents the 36-year-old law graduate from Saltdean imprisoned without charge in the US military jail for more than three years.

The Argus has also learnt that Mr Straw raised the issue of the British residents still in the jail with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when he met her last month.

Mr Turner hopes to take members of the Deghayes family to the meeting, as well as Mr Deghayes' lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith.

It is a major breakthrough in the campaign to get justice for Mr Deghayes, as Mr Straw's office was responsible for the release of all the British citizens from Guantanamo Bay.

The Foreign Office brought all the British citizens who were being held at the jail back to the UK to be dealt with here but it has repeatedly said it cannot help Mr Deghayes as he is a refugee and does not have a British passport, despite being a resident of this country for almost 20 years.

But Mr Straw has now agreed to meet Mr Turner soon to discuss the case. Mr Turner said: "I will be reminding Jack of the problems and asking him to do whatever he can.

"Not even the Americans can keep those prisoners there forever."

A meeting between Mr Straw and Mr Deghayes' family was one of the demands on a 4,000-name petition handed into Downing Street by campaigners.

Organiser Jackie Chase, 48, of Grantham Road, Brighton, said: "This is fantastic news. Jack Straw has real power over what happens to Omar."

The Argus launched a campaign to secure justice for Mr Deghayes in September and has been lobbying the Government to accept and act on its responsibility towards the prisoner.

The Home Office and the Foreign Office have so far maintained neither is responsibile for helping Mr Deghayes.