The UK High Court in London has within the last hour ruled that Palestinian activist Raed Salah was wrongfully detained after his entry to the country, and is thus entitled to compensation.

The full ruling is available online here, and is also included at the end of this post. The judge, Mr Justice Nicol ruled that:

I have accepted his [Raed Salah’s] argument that he was not given proper and sufficient reasons for his arrest on 28th June nor was he given them until some time on 30th June. He is entitled to damages for wrongful detention during that period

I was in the High Court for the entire two days of the appeal, and I may blog again later with some analysis once I’ve had a chance to read the full judgement.

The ruling is a big blow to the case of Home Secretary Theresa May, as she seeks to have him removed from the country. Salah is challenging her exclusion order against him in seperate appeal in a Birmigham immigration court (my full report for EI on that is here).

In a press release, Sheikh Salah’s solicitor Tayab Ali said:

We welcome the Court’s finding that Sheikh Salah was wrongfully detained and that he should be compensated for that. We are however disappointed that the Judge refused the judicial review in respect of the statutory purpose and policy. This is a worrying first step towards a policy of preventative detention for acts that have not even been contemplated yet.

This post was updated Saturday to add a link to my report from Birmingham.