GUANTANAMO BAY – Inmates at Guantanamo Bay who are campaigning for their release at the High Court in London had contact with the terrorist cell responsible for carrying out last July’s London bombings, interrogation officials at the detention camp have disclosed.

American officials responsible for running the camp say that “dozens” of the 500 detainees currently being held at Guantanamo had previously lived or worked in Britain prior to their capture in Afghanistan in 2001, but are not British citizens.

Three of the detainees – who describe themselves as residents, but not citizens, in papers served at the High Court – were last week given permission to seek an order for Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to campaign for their release.

But American officials responsible for interrogating the suspects say that the detainees had knowledge of the cell responsible for carrying out the bomb attacks on three Tube trains and a London bus that killed 52 people and wounded more than 700 others.

“After the London bombings we got a request from British intelligence to check whether these people had any knowledge of those responsible for carrying out the attacks,” a senior American official said. “We interviewed them and they were able to provide a great deal of information about the bombings which we passed back to London.”

American officials refused to give specific details of the intelligence provided by the detainees, but said it related to the “training and organizational structure” of the terror cells responsible for carrying out the July 7 attack.

The American officer responsible for running Guantanamo, Major-General Jay Hood, confirmed that MI6 has made repeated requests for information about the terror attacks from inmates held at the detention facility.