in 2001 and accused of being involved with the Taliban. The two men got to talking through the fencing that divided captor from captive, and Neely soon realized that they had more in common that he originally thought.

 

“It was no different from me sitting at the bar with a friend of mine talking about women or music,” Neely told the BBC News. “He would say, ‘You ever listen to Eminem or Dr Dre,’ and he threw off a little rap and it was just funny. I thought how could it be somebody is here who’s doing the same stuff that I do when I’m back home.”

 

After spending six months at Guantánamo and serving in Iraq, Neely left the military. Uncomfortable with the abuses he saw at Camp X-Ray, he began to talk about his experiences. He also decided to seek out those he once guarded who had been released and, surprisingly, found one of them, Shafiq Rasul, on Facebook. Neely’s friending of Rasul led to his reconnecting with Ahmed as well, and a televised reunion was later arranged by the BBC.

 

Ahmed admits that he and Rasul and another friend did go to Afghanistan to engage in illegal activity: they wanted to “smoke some dope.” Neely believes they are telling the truth and that the trio was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Guantanamo Guard Reunited With Ex-Inmates (by Gavin Lee, BBC News)

Testimony of Spc. Brandon Neely (Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas)