A FORMER prisoner and an ex-guard from America's most notorious military prison stood laughing and joking side by side at the University of Nottingham.

But Chris Arendt, a former guard at Guantánamo Bay and Moazzam Begg, who was held there for two years without a trial, have an important message for the new American president as he moves into the White House today.

Barack Obama has pledged to close Guantánamo Bay, the prison that houses suspected terrorists at a US Naval base in Cuba, within his first week of office.

Mr Begg, who is from Birmingham and was detained by the US when he was in Pakistan with his wife and children in 2002, said: "Any statement that says Guantánamo will be closed is most welcome but the issue isn't Guantánamo, but the concept of arbitrary detention without trial.

"There will be other Guantánamos, but they will be much more secretive."

And Mr Arendt, who worked there in 2004 when he was just 19, said: "I'm hopeful, but I don't trust politicians anymore. I don't think he's really going to fix anything."

Now 24, Mr Arendt is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and was speaking at an event last night organised by Guantánamo Bay human rights group Cageprisoners and University of Nottingham groups the Free Hich Campaign and Nottingham Peace Movement.

Zueb Shamsi, a 59 year-old accountant from Wollaton at the event last night, said: "It was an eye opener, if a Guantánamo Bay captor and captive can be friends and laugh and talk about it, surely there's a message there for the rest of us."

Talking to Mr Begg last night, Mr Arendt said: "We went through a lot of getting stabbed practice because you guys were renowned for making knives out of toilet paper and if we became complacent we would get stabbed to death."

Mr Arendt admits laughter is a way of dealing with the travesties that he witnessed, which he thinks about "all day, every day".

He described how soldiers sprayed pepper spray in the faces of prisoners for 15 seconds, instead of one second as instructed.

"They never saw these people as human beings but as terrorists and the worst of the worst and they took all their frustration and anger everywhere," he added.

delia.monk@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk