Omar Amer Deghayes (born November 28, 1969) (Arabic: عمر عامر الدغيس) is a Libyan citizen who had legal residency status with surviving members of his family in the United Kingdom since childhood.

When Deghayes was a child, his father, a prominent attorney and union organiser, was arrested and executed by Muammar Gaddafi's government in Libya.

)[6] The High Court concluded that it did not have the authority to make recommendation in the area of foreign affairs, but said that the evidence that the British residents were being tortured was "powerful".

Deghaye and another former detainee were arrested under a Spanish warrant on allegations of al-Qaeda involvement in 2003; he was released on bail while his case is considered.

[9][10] After the United States invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, Deghayes moved temporarily to Pakistan for what he thought would be safety with his Afghan wife and child.

[11] His attorney Clive Stafford Smith said that in 2005 an investigation by BBC Newsnight discovered that, shortly before Deghayes's arrest, an anonymous informant had mistakenly identified him to Spanish authorities as appearing in a videotape including Arab mujahideen among rebels in Chechnya.

(The person in the videotape was later correctly identified as Abu al-Walid, an insurgent leader who was killed in Chechnya by Russians in April 2004.

"[4] Together with many other prisoners, in 2002, Deghayes was transported to the recently constructed Guantanamo Bay detention camp and held as a suspected enemy combatant.

He described Guantanamo as "...a safe, humane and professional detention operation..."[13] On August 10, 2007, family members released a detailed dossier listing the torture and humiliation that Deghaye claimed that he and other detainees were subjected to while in U.S. custody.

[12] The team consulted with Professor Tim Valentine of Goldsmiths College, a facial recognition expert, who said that the face in the videotape could not possibly be that of Deghayes.

[12] In August 2007, Stafford Smith said that the face in the videotape was eventually identified as a Saudi Arabian foreign mujahideen leader in Chechnya named Abu al-Walid.

[20][21][22][23] According to an article by his attorney Clive Stafford Smith, Deghayes wrote: I am slowly dying in this solitary prison cell, I have no rights, no hope.

Within weeks, the Department of Defense (DOD) created and implemented the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which it intended to replace habeas corpus hearings in federal courts.

The Tribunals were empowered simply to determine whether the captive had previously been correctly classified under the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

That for Omar Amer Deghayes's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, held on September 27, 2004, included the following allegations:[24] The detainee is a member of al Qaida and associated with the Taliban.

[27] A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Omar Amer Deghayes' second annual Administrative Review Board, on August 8, 2006.

f. The detainee stated that if released he would like to go back to Brighton, England to work in his family's property business which his mother and brother are currently running.

On August 7, 2007, the United Kingdom government requested the release of Omar Deghayes and four other detainees who had been legal British residents prior to their detention.

[29] Responding to considerable interest in the case of Deghayes and other men, the UK government warned the public that the negotiations might take months.

Dating from August 2002 through May 2005, these authorized specific enhanced interrogation techniques to be used by the CIA and DOD, which have since legally held to be torture.

[34] Deghayes and the three other men: Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, Lahcen Ikassrien, and Jamiel Abdul Latif al Banna, had previously faced charges in Spanish courts, based on confessions they made while in US custody.

Their charges were dropped in the cases of Deghayes and al Banna, based on Garzón's determination that their mental health had been adversely affected by their detention.