Pre-trial hearings have begun for four Guantanamo detainees who will go before a military tribunal later this year. As soon as the suspects' names and backgrounds were announced, it became clear that the Bush administration isn't holding any major terrorist figures at Guantanamo. The four include an Australian mercenary who fought with the Taliban and has no provable links to Al Qaeda, a Sudanese man described as a driver for Osama bin Laden and an "accountant" for Al Qaeda, and two Yemenis: another driver for Osama (how many drivers did Osama have, anyway?) and a poet who made recruiting videos for Al Qaeda. Big fish, huh?

The first man up for a pre-trial hearings was Hamdam, the Yemeni driver. His lawyer made absolute mincemeat of the tribunal members, questioning them about international law (all were scandalously ignorant, and one member admitted that he knew nothing about the Geneva Conventions) and pointing out that only one member of the tribunal had any legal training at all (and that man had let his license lapse).

In addition, the structure of the panel doesn't even adhere to historic standards governing military tribunals since the time of George Washington. The defendants have no right of appeal to an independent judge, no right to see classified evidence against them, no privacy for conversations with their counsel, and they're allowed only one lawyer each, even though at least one of them has requested a second attorney. Evidence that may be presented against them includes coerced confessions obtained through torture, although those confessions will probably remain classified and unavailable to the defendant, his counsel, journalists, and the general public.

What's most disturbing is that the US government is not providing competent translators for the trials, severely hindering the defendants' rights to speak on their own behalf and understand what's going on in the courtroom. This became clear when the Yemeni poet asked to defend himself, and the translators made all kinds of mistakes in translating his words to the tribunal. For example, one of the translators told the tribunal that the poet had legal training, but then another translator interrupted and said that he understood the poet only knew people in Yemen who had legal training.

Nor is this an isolated case. The Pentagon is conducting prisoner status reviews, wherein a three-man military panel rules on a case-by-case basis whether Guantanamo prisoners have prisoner-of-war status or "enemy combatant" status. Those who are ruled enemy combatants can be detained forever without trial, while those who are deemed prisoners of war must be treated according to international law.

Many of these prisoner status reviews have been conducted in secret, with the public and journalists barred from entering the hearing room. But a few of them have been open to the public, and Al Jazeera journalists attended one last week. They were shocked to hear multiple, critical, and highly misleading mistakes in the translation from Arabic to English and vice versa. After the Al Jazeera journalists protested to the panel and other media outlets, the Pentagon finally said that the hearing witnessed by the Al Jazeera journalists would be re-done. But what about the secret hearings that no one is allowed in to see?

What's clear is that neither the prisoner status reviews nor the so-called "military tribunals" set up by the Bush administration adhere to the Supreme Court's ruling that the Guantanamo prisoners must be allowed access to federal courts. Instead, they've set up this farce.