The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a scathing attack on the American prison camp where a former Brighton resident has been held without charge for four years.

Dr Rowan Williams said Guantanamo Bay was an "extraordinary legal anomaly".

Omar Deghayes, who spent most of his adult life living in Saltdean, is one of nine British residents imprisoned in the military camp in Cuba.

None of the hundreds of prisoners has been given a trial.

In a BBC interview with Sir David Frost, Dr Williams said keeping in custody people who had not been found guilty or allowed access to proper legal channels set a dangerous precedent.

He said: "Any message given, that any state can just over-ride some of the basic habeas corpus type provisions, is going to be very welcome to tyrants elsewhere in the world, now and in the future.

"What, in ten years' time, are people going to be able to say about a system that tolerates this?"

Dr Williams, who was elected as Archbishop of Canterbury in July 2002, was speaking in Khartoum, Sudan, during a one-week World Food Programme tour of the country.

The Argus has supported a campaign for justice by Mr Deghayes' family and human rights activists. It is also backed by Brighton Kemptown MP Des Turner, Mr Deghayes' former MP, and Brighton and Hove City Council.

The Argus sent a dossier to Tony Blair asking him to put pressure on the US for a fair trial.

Mr Blair has since called the camp "an anomaly".

Last month members of the Save Omar campaign presented their case to the American Embassy.

Mr Deghayes, 36, is a former Sussex University law student.

British citizens originally held in Guantanamo were released without charge. There are nine former British residents still being held. One was released last month and sent to Uganda after being refused entry to the UK.

Dr Williams said during his time as head of the Anglican Communion he had made great efforts to reach out to moderate Muslims in an effort to combat terrorism.

He said: "A lot of my own energy and the energy of a great many Anglicans in the last few years has gone into trying to build bridges to moderate Muslim opinion, strengthening precisely their own resistance to terror and violence."

Dr Williams added he thought terrorism was "an insult to God and man".

He said: "I hold no brief for Muslim extremism. I think it's appalling."

The reaction of Muslims in some parts of the world to the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed had been a "hysterical overreaction", he said.

But the violence stemmed from their perception of themselves as "constantly being pushed to the edge of every discussion and every negotiation in the world".