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Now in the BBC World Service, in this Monday's documentary, the crime writer, Francis

Feifield, discovers how the ancient legal principle of habeas corpus is still one of our most

fundamental rights in the great writ.

The freedoms we have must be garrously guarded by law and by brave individuals.

That's the story of the great writ. It has travelled across the empire and become enshrined

in new constitutions. It establishes an essential right. If a policeman detains a citizen, then

someone in authority must give a proper legal reason why. A prisoner must be charged,

and if the officials cannot come up with a good reason, then the prisoner has to be released.

There are no grey areas with habeas corpus, or at least there shouldn't be.

In recent times, the Guantanamo Bay Camp looked like it might finally crush a writ with

a noble history going back over 400 years. We will hear from a leading historian and

human rights lawyers. But before that, we thought it might be interesting to begin with

the testimony of what it is like from the prisoner's point of view. What is it like to

be jailed without charge or the chance of a trial? Jack Mapanji, a poet and linguist

once resident of Malawi, knows only too well. We took him a copy of Franz Kafka's famous

book The Trial.

Thank you for bringing me Kafka's The Trial. The first sentence is actually the most exciting

one for me. Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K. For without having done

anything wrong, he was arrested one fine morning. That's almost me. One afternoon, I just

had my lunch, and comes along with this man from nowhere, and my Lord was as shaken because

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