Anti-fascist campaigners have expressed their disgust at inaction by the Home Office over the impending visit to SOAS of "devil's advocate" Jacques Vergès.

Searchlight's Gerry Gable said that it was "disgraceful" the Home Office had not yet responded to calls to ban the French lawyer. Mr Vergès, 86, has defended Nazi war criminals, Holocaust deniers and Palestinian terrorists. His defence of Lyon Gestapo head Klaus Barbie and pro-Palestinian terrorist Carlos the Jackal was financed by Francois Genoud, a Swiss Nazi who was the executor of Joseph Goebbels's will.

The Home Office said that no decision had yet been taken over the ban.