BBC Two, 5 Live to air Guantanamo reunion

Newsnight and Five Live have joined forces to broadcast coverage from a reunion between a former Guantanamo Bay guard and two released inmates.

Titled Guantanamo Reunited, the unique programme will see former camp guard Brandon Neely come face-to-face with former prisoners Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, two thirds of the so-called Tipton Three.

The three men recently came together at a BBC studio in London, eight years after they first met at the notorious US detention camp in Cuba.

Coverage from the meeting will be broadcast on tonight's edition of Newsnight on BBC Two at 10.30pm. Ahmed and Rasul's full story will also be told in a half-hour programme to air on Five Live on January 14 at 10pm.

On November 28, 2001, Ahmed and Rasul were detained in northern Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance and then sold to US forces for immediate transfer to Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray on suspicion of terrorism.

After encountering them and others at the camp in his role as a military police officer, Neely started to have doubts about their guilt and the treatment that they were receiving.

After the three men re-connected via social networking website Facebook, Neely agreed to travel to the UK for a meeting. The documentary footage will cover Neely's personal apology to Ahmed and Rasul for his involvement in their incarceration, which he now views as a great injustice.

"If you read the definition of torture it's a very vague definition. Physical, mental, it can be anything," said Neely, now a Texas police officer.

"Well, to me, torture is taking an innocent man and locking him up in a cage for two-and-a-half years. So if that's how they do it, then everyone who has ever set foot in Guantanamo should be held responsible for torture, including myself."

Ahmed and Rasul, both from Tipton in the Midlands, expressed their thanks for Neely's apology, but also pointed to his admission as vindication of their allegations of ill treatment.

"When people like yourself come out and basically say the same things that we were saying, it helped us so much for people to believe what we were saying was true," said Rasul. "So I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart what you've done."

Ahmed added: "It takes a lot of courage to say that 'I was wrong'. A lot of courage."

Coverage from the reunion will also be made available for US viewers on BBC World News America.