America's idea of what constituted torture "is not the same as ours and doesn't appear to coincide with that of most civilised countries", says judge

Three British residents detained at Guantánamo Bay were today given the go-ahead to seek a high court order requiring the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to press the US for their release.

The three detainees involved in the case are not British citizens but were long-term residents in the UK before their detention at the US naval base in Cuba.

Mr Justice Collins, a high court judge in London, said that a factor in his ruling today was that there were allegations of torture at the detention facility.

The judge's decision came after a day-long hearing during which he commented that America's idea of what constituted torture "is not the same as ours and doesn't appear to coincide with that of most civilised countries".

Mr Justice Collins has a reputation for making controversial remarks and his pronouncements from the treatment of Gypsies to laws on terrorism and immigration have brought howls of disapproval from both Conservative and Labour politicians.

He said the men and their families living in the UK had an arguable case that the British government was under an obligation to act on their behalf.

However, the judge stressed his decision was "no guarantee" that the three men, Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes, and their families, would win their case. There were formidable arguments against them, the judge said.

His remarks today coincided with a UN report which urged that the Guantánamo facility should be shut down and called on the US government to refrain from any practice "amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".

After the judge's decision today, the full case against Mr Straw is expected to be heard in mid-March.

Nine British citizens who had been detained at Guantánamo Bay have all been flown back to the UK and released without charge. The British government pushed Washington to secure the release of the Britons - and human rights groups have called for the same pressure to be exerted by the UK over long term UK residents.

Gareth Peirce, the solicitor for the three men, said after today's hearing: "After so many years of such bitter disappointment, this is the first ray of light that we have had - the first ability to hope that this might be the beginning of the end for the ordeal of these three families."

Earlier, Rabinder Singh QC, for the men and their families, had told the judge the case arose out of what had been described by a law lord as the "utter lawlessness at Guantánamo Bay", where people were being detained indefinitely without trial.

Mr Rawi, 37, an Iraqi national who had lived in Britain since 1985, and his Jordanian business partner Mr Banna, who was granted refugee status in 2000, were detained three years ago in Gambia - "far from any theatre of war", said Mr Singh.

They were alleged to have been associated with al-Qaida through their connection with the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada.

Mr Singh said Mr Rawi's contact with Qatada was "expressly approved and encouraged by British intelligence" to whom he supplied information about the cleric.

The judge was told that intelligence operatives assured Mr Rawi that, should he run into trouble, they would intervene and assist him. But the British government was subsequently unwilling to make material available to him when a hearing on his case was held at Guantánamo Bay, the QC said.

Mr Banna was said to have been in possession of "a homemade electronic device" at the time of his arrest. It was, in fact, a battery charger bought from Argos and cleared by the UK authorities before he went to Gambia.

Mr Deghayes was detained in Pakistan. His name was said to be on the FBI's "most wanted" list. But the photograph in his file was of a "totally different individual", said Mr Singh.

Mr Justice Collins was told that Mr Deghayes had been rendered virtually blind in one eye by the use of pepper spray and the gouging of his eye during his detention, yet was still being constantly subjected to high light levels.

The government's counsel, Philip Sales, said the foreign secretary had already decided to reconsider Mr Rawi's case because of its particular circumstances. His argument that permission should not be granted in the other cases because the detainees did not have British nationality was rejected by Mr Justice Collins.