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The Reunion

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The Reunion: Guantanamo Bay

16/08/2015

Guantanamo Bay

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion, Guantanamo Bay

Sue MacGregor speaks to former detainees and the head of the guard force at Guantanamo Bay

Sami al Hajj spent eight years in Guantanamo. Sue MacGregor reunites him with the man in charge of guarding him, former detainee Moazzam Begg and lawyer Clive Stafford Smith.

Sue MacGregor speaks to former detainees and the head of the guard force at Guantanamo Bay.

In 2002, a detention camp was hastily built in a remote corner of Cub, to house the men captured in America's "war on terror". Thirteen years later, it is still there. And in the intervening time, Guantanamo Bay has become a byword for controversy, a place Amnesty International called "the gulag of our time".

Now Sue MacGregor reunites two of the men held there. Sami al Hajj, a Sudanese cameraman with the news organisation Al Jazeera, was picked up in Afghanistan. He says he was covering America's war with the Taliban. Moazzam Begg, who is British, was living with his family in Pakistan when he was arrested. He claims he was handed over for bounty money. They are joined by Colonel Mike Bumgarner, head of the guard force at Guantanamo, and lawyer Clive Stafford Smith.

Sami al Hajj spent eight years in the camp. He describes being beaten and forcibly kept awake. He went on hunger strike and says he was force fed until he threw up, in an attempt to break his strike. But the worst torture was being kept away from his family, particularly his baby son. Moazzam Begg was detained for three years. He says he saw two men beaten to death by American soldiers in Afghanistan on his way to Guantanamo. 
Colonel Mike Bumgarner describes how little guidance was given to those in charge of running the camp and points out that, while force feeding is unpleasant, detainees can't just be allowed to die. Clive Stafford Smith reveals the black humour at the heart of Guantanamo, recalling a detainee who was accused of being an Al Qaeda financier purely as a result of mistranslation.


Producer: Kate Taylor
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

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