It is more than four years since I first heard the name Omar Deghayes.

His family, who were based in Brighton, were at their wits end.

Omar, their son and brother was being held in Guantanamo Bay.

The United States deemed him to be a terrorist. The evidence? A jihadi video from Chechnya in which Omar Deghayes was said to feature.

The family had not seen the video, which had been found in an apartment in Madrid.

The formidable Spanish judge, Balthazar Garzon, was demanding the Americans hand Omar Deghayes to Spanish police so he could help with their inquiries - the notion was that he had been linked to the cell responsible for the Madrid train bombings which killed 191 people.

Omar, who had only recently become a devout Muslim and headed east, was in deep trouble.

Later that day, through contacts in Madrid, I secured a copy of this all-important video.

His brother, Taher, watched as the murky, ill-focused footage revealed jihadists in conference around a table and then roaming outdoors, mugging for the camera on the Chechen hills.

We came to a close-up of a well-fed, bearded character on whom the Spanish police had superimposed the name "Omar Deghayes".

Taher exhaled and beamed: "That's not him! No, it's not him."

He then went through all the different reasons this was most certainly not his younger brother - the nose, the eyes - there was no resemblance.

And wouldn't he recognise his own brother? He'd known him literally all his life, even before the family had fled their home in Libya after the assassination of their father, a prominent lawyer and opponent of President Gadaffi.

We put out a film on Newsnight telling the story of Deghayes, showing the video and letting Taher state his case.

But this was a brother supporting a brother (and I use the word in the familial sense). He would proclaim mistaken identity wouldn't he? We could not reach any firm conclusion.

A few days later I received a call from the BBC's monitoring service at Caversham, the people who follow with diligence the fine detail and daily shifts of international affairs.

Paul Tumelty, a researcher with great expertise in the waning fortunes of Chechen jihadists, said he had seen our Newsnight piece and had instantly recognised the man named in the video.

He was "100% certain" this was in fact a notorious jihadist. And that he certainly was not Deghayes but one "Walid", a warlord who had been much feared. Past tense. Walid had been dead for a year or more, killed fighting the Russians.

At this point one would like to say we ran that story and Deghayes was on the next plane home from Guantanamo Bay. Sadly, only the first part of the sentence is true.

It was almost three more years before Omar Deghayes was released.

As he tells it, his US captors simply replaced one set of false allegations with another - a pattern he claims was familiar throughout his incarceration.

His account of what happened during his years of imprisonment - in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Guantanamo - is both fascinating and troubling.

It poses further serious questions as to how the US behaved in the War On Terror and to what extent British intelligence was complicit.

Omar says it is good to be back in Brighton. After so often being the subject of interrogation, now he would like some answers of his own.

Watch Peter Marshall's interview with Omar Deghayes on Newsnight on Friday 19 June, then online at the Newsnight website.

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The Speaker embroiled in political controversy? It may have proved fatal for Michael Martin's career at Westminster but in the US partisan feuds have been meat and drink to Nancy Pelosi, the fuel on which the Speaker of the House of Representatives has thrived. Until now.

Rep Pelosi is one of the more polarising personalities to occupy a post which, in America, is always intensely party political. After all, the US Speaker leads their party in Congress and is thus expected to embody exactly what the UK Speaker must avoid: political bias.

But Ms Pelosi, a California liberal and always a lightning rod for Republican ire, has left herself wide open to attacks from opponents of all stripes over her recent confusion over the CIA and torture.

The issue, as ever, turns on what the politician knew and when she knew it.

Ms Pelosi has been a long standing critic of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" fostered by the Bush administration for suspected terrorists.

She, like many others, condemned the measures as torture and led the demands that those responsible be held accountable.

But then it was revealed that Ms Pelosi herself might be considered "responsible". As the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee it has emerged that she was briefed on the interrogations, and most significantly on the use of simulated drowning - or waterboarding - more than six years ago by the CIA.

She hadn't uttered a word of dissent.

While Ms Pelosi's initial denial and subsequent embarrassment has rumbled on for weeks the CIA has today been in court defending its right to keep its secrets over the interrogations.

At Westminster, Michael Martin's successor will be chosen before the month is out. Ms Pelosi, the Speaker across the ocean, will probably outlast Speaker Martin.

But even if the row over when she was in the loop doesn't prove her downfall, the torture issue lives on, more publically than ever, in a variety of court cases and congressional committees. It isn't going away.

Speaker Pelosi, facing accusations of humbug and hypocrisy, has to steel herself for months more duckings on the political waterboard.

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You may not realise it, but today is the day when the Obama presidency begins.

We've had the election and inauguration and nearly five pell mell months of announcements and mission statements.

We've seen Barack Obama play the role of US president with ease and elan (and yes, he took the French in the same way he wooed the rest of Europe and South America and, most impressive of all, the Muslim world).

His style has been a success to exceed expectations.

As Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin learned the hard way last autumn, this is a politician who is good with words.

But the speechifyin' derided by the lady from Alasaka is only part of the job. For all his full marks for presentation, he cannot be properly assessed until he has followed through.

The challenges Mr Obama faces remain undiminished. Indeed they grow by the day. From Israel-Palestine to Af-Pak, from the nuclear ambitions of Iran to the nuclear capability of North Korea, this is a dangerous world.

But it is at home, where the economy languishes and 1.6m jobs have disappeared since February, that Mr Obama must now perform following "the eventful prologue of his presidency".

He has just announced 600,000 new jobs after repackaging his stimulus plan. You don't need to be Larry Summers or more than vaguely numerate to understand that this still leaves a shortfall of a million since the stimulus was introduced.

The president has to shore up and then rebuild America's financial base while simultaneously delivering on his promise for health care reform.

What would be a formidably difficult task in times of economic strength (ask Bill Clinton) now looks positively Sisyphean. But that campaign too begins afresh today.

And of course the world outside keeps on turning. The "Dear Leader's" North Korea has just opened another front in his campaign to try the patience of all - Chinese friend and US foe alike.

And a court in Pyongyang has sentenced two US journalists to 12 years' hard labour for illegally entering the country.

With his ongoing programme of nuclear tests, his eccentric and unpredictable un-diplomatic style and his apparent determination never to relinquish his post as The World's Most Dangerous Man, Kim Jong-il is shaping up to be Mr Obama's biggest problem of all.

Given what else is going on, that's some claim.

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