Congress to See Play About Guantánamo

The plight of British residents in Guantánamo Bay, currently being considered by high court judges here, is to be heard on Capitol Hill - through the voices of actors. An updated version of the play Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, is to be presented before members of the US House of Representatives next month.

The play features Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi and longtime UK resident who was seized by the CIA in The Gambia 2002 after a tip-off from the British security services. The high court heard last week that Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, has now agreed to take up the case with the Bush administration after it was disclosed that Mr Rawi had helped MI5 in Britain before he was seized by the Americans.

Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Tugendhat are expected to rule next week on whether the British government is under an obligation to petition Washington for the release of the British residents detained at Guantánamo.

Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights who recently returned from the US detention camp in Cuba, said yesterday: "I hope many members of Congress take the time to attend this event and see exactly what the policies of the Bush administration mean to the men who are still being held in Guantánamo."

The performance on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 6 is sponsored by two Democratic members of Congress, Jan Schakowsky and John Conyers. The play is based on recorded testimony from one of the detainees, the families of prisoners, their lawyers and their letters home, as well as public record statements made by American and British politicians including Mr Straw and Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary.

It was first commissioned by London's Tricycle Theatre and has also been presented in the House of Commons.