Four police officers will appear in court this afternoon charged with assaulting Tooting terror suspect Babar Ahmad.

They are to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court accused of attacking the 36-year-old as they arrested him during a raid on his home in 2003.

PCs Nigel Cowley, 32, Roderick James-Bowen, 39, and Mark Jones, 43, and Detective Constable John Donohue, 36 - who were all members of the Metropolitan Police's territorial support group at the time - face a joint charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Mr Ahmad won a £60,000 payout from the Met in March 2009 after the force admitted he had been attacked. He is currently in the low-secure Long Lartin prison after being held without trial for nearly seven years - the longest detained-without-charge British citizen in the modern history of the UK, according to campaign group Free Babar Ahmad.

He has never been charged or convicted of any criminal offence.

After his imprisonment in 2004, the American Government issued a warrant for his extradition, claiming he was involved in websites that allegedly supported Chechen resistance fighters in the 1990s.

Judges at the European Court of Human Rights are due to announce next year whether extradition would breach his human rights.