An asylum-seeker, cleared of rioting at Campsfield House, in Kidlington, has had his deportation put off due to a visa delay at the Home Office.

He was due to be deported today after the Home Office suddenly served papers ordering him out of Britain.

Shocked John Quaquah, 32, had been told he was being expelled yesterday in Rochester Prison, Kent, where he has been held since his trial collapsed. Visa papers for two guards who were taking him from England to Ghana did not come through in time, delaying the deportation until Friday, July 3.

The Home Office decision to remove him from Britaincame out of the blue and has angered supporters who think Mr Quaquah, who fled Ghana for political reasons, should be allowed to stay. A second asylum-seeker acquitted of rioting, Stanley Nwaidike, will be sent home on July 2 after being served with a Home Office order. Candis Roberts, secretary of the Asylum Welcome group, is pleading for them both to stay on compassionate grounds - but thinks her appeal is likely to fail.

Dr Evan Harris, MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said: "I do not think Quaquah should be deported. I do not think he has had a fair legal hearing here. If they can keep him in this country awaiting a flawed trial They ought to allow him to stay long enough to hear his asylum application."

Dr Harris has sent an urgent letter to Home Office minister Mike O'Brien asking for the decision to be reversed.

Campaigners are furious Mr Quaquah, Mr Nwaidike and three other detainees were transferred to Rochester Prison straight after the crown court case against them abruptly ended last week.

It was alleged they had rioted at Campsfield House, Langford Lane, last August, but the trial collapsed. Before the trial, three of them had been kept in Bullingdon Prison.

Apart from Mr Quaquah and Mr Nwaidike, fellow acquitted detainees Sambou Marong, Harrison Tubman and Enahoro Esemuze are also being held in Rochester. So far they have not been served with removal directions, but their supporters are worried they will be soon.

Close Campsfield campaigner Teresa Hayter said: "The Home Office can decide to remove people at any time.

"What is horrible is that they leave them for ten months in Bullingdon Prison hoping to get a criminal conviction and when they get acquitted they suddenly decide to start deporting them."

Of the other defendants in the original riot trial, three who have refugee status are staying in Oxfordshire with friends and a fourth is receiving treatment in a London hospital.

The Home Office was not available for comment.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.