The new judge in the Sept. 11 military commission, Marine Col. Keith Parrella, cut short the pretrial session in January after learning that he had a detaching retina and had to be flown off the island.
In January, multiple defense teams wanted him to postpone the hearing based on the FBI’s recent interrogation of a former paralegal on the defense team for Walid Bin Attash. Defense lawyers said this was another example of the government investigating and intimidating defense teams in a manner that may create a conflict of interest. Parrella disagreed, and decided to move forward after being convinced that no current member of any of the five teams was under investigation. However, his health issue ended up postponing the proceedings anyway.
The next hearing is scheduled to start on March 25.