Guantánamo Reunited

Radio is rather good at reconciliation moments, handling them with ­welcome dignity. Listening to ­ Guantánamo Reunited (Radio 5 Live), an ­excellent programme that shied away from possible sensationalism, I was ­relieved this wasn't for television. The three men involved – a former guard at the notorious prison and two British men wrongly held there – were given space and time to tell their ­stories calmly and with reflection. When high emotions surfaced, and tears were choked back, I was glad the camera wasn't greedily zooming in. At their meeting, Brandon Neely, Shafiq Rasul and Ruhal Ahmed recalled their own particular horrors. For the detainees, this was the worst moments of despair ("taking my own life; I thought about it many times") while for Neely, it was one act that has burned away at him. A new inmate, kneeling on the floor, repeatedly jerked as handcuffs and shackles were removed from him, ­despite orders not to move. He flinched once more, Neely explained. "I slammed him face-first into the ground," he said. The left side of the man's face, he added "was all scraped up," but that wasn't the worst thing. That came later, when Neely discovered a key detail that explained the flinching. "When we put him on his knees," he said quietly, "he thought he was going to be executed."