Law Lords to rule on whether Chagos Islanders can finally return home

Thousands of Chagos islanders have had the right to return to their homeland in the Indian Ocean overturned by a House of Lords judgement.

The former residents, evicted from the British overseas territory between 1967 and 1971, hoped their heritage can be rebuilt around a new tourist industry.

But the largest Chagos island of Diego Garcia, which the UK leased to the US for a military air base remains an issue of contention.

Inhabitants of the British colony in the Indian Ocean were evicted in the 1960s after Britain agreed that American armed forces could set up a navy and army base on the archipelago.

In a secret agreement made in 1966, Britain gave a 50-year lease to the Americans on the atoll of Diego Garcia in return for a $11million (£6.53million) discount on the Polaris nuclear missile system.

But despite security fears the High Court ruled the islanders should be allowed to return to their homeland despite security concerns raised by the Government who tried to push through an Orders of Council law to keep the islanders out.

But High Court judges criticised the attempt and said at the time: "The suggestion that a minister can, through the means of an Order in Council, exile a whole population from a British overseas territory and claim that he is doing so for the 'peace, order and good government' of the territory is, to us, repugnant."