Families exiled from the Chagos Islands decades ago by the British so the Americans could build a major airbase on Diego Garcia won a victory today in their British High Court battle for the right to return.
The families forced out of their Indian Ocean home in the mid-1960s and early 1970s overturned measures introduced by the British government under the royal prerogative to prevent their return.
Solicitor for the islanders Richard Gifford said: "The British government has been defeated in its attempt to abolish the right of abode of the islanders after first deporting them in secret 30 years ago."
Mr Gifford said two judges had ruled that the islanders were entitled to return to their "beautiful islands".
Lawyers for the islanders had argued in court that, although they cannot live on the main island of Diego Garcia, they should be allowed to return to other islands in the Chagos Archipelago, which is composed of 65 islands.
Leader of the Chagos Refugee Group Olivier Bancoult thought he had won the right to go home to the British colony after a High Court victory in 2000.
The court ruled then that a 1971 Immigration Ordinance banning people without permits from entering or remaining in the colony was unlawful.
But the government used the royal prerogative to introduce a fresh order in 2004 which continued his exile.
Last December, Mr Bancoult returned to court to argue the royal prerogative could not be used "to remove or exclude British citizens from the territory to which they belong".
Today he won a landmark second legal victory when the High Court ruled the government's action irrational and unlawful.
The judges said the order made under the royal prerogative preventing the islanders from returning was, on its face, concerned with the interests of the United Kingdom and United States but failed properly to take into account the interests of the island territory.
PA