and colleagues, Yezza (pictured right) has lived in Nottingham for 13 years and is a popular figure on the university campus, where he earned his degree and a PhD in mechanical engineering. He is also a member of a popular theatrical dance troupe and a regular visitor to the Hay-On-Wye literary festival, where he would have gone this week had it not been for his arrest.

None of this is obvious al-Qaeda material. But Yezza is also a longtime peace activist and the editor of a student magazine Ceasefire. Did this political activity qualify him for deportation in the eyes of the authorities? Or has Yezza become a suitably suspicious foreigner, whose removal is intended to deflect attention from a botched investigation?

Whatever the answer, the whole affair does no credit to any of the institutions involved, nor are such procedures likely to do much to

advance the cause of counter-terrorism. Yesterday, students and members of staff staged a public protest at Yezza's deportation and the threat to academic freedom posed by the original arrests, in which they read extracts from the al-Qaeda manual.

Alf Nielsen, a research fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations, is indignant at the university's role in an investigation which he believes should never have involved the police in the first place.

Yezza's friends and supporters on campus have cause to question the paranoia, xenophobia and authoritarianism that may result in the deportation of an innocent man. They must also be wondering whether the 'war on terror' is doing infinitely more damage to the brittle facade of British democracy than its terrorist enemies could ever have hoped.