Judge’s health emergency causes cancellation of 9/11 hearing at Guantánamo
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article225257050.html
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — The Pentagon abruptly ended a 9/11 pretrial hearing Tuesday because the judge in the case had a health emergency, war court spokesmen said.
Marine Col. Keith Parrella’s abrupt recess presented another pretrial delay in efforts to try the five men accused of plotting al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed 2,976 people in New York, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. The next hearings are scheduled for late March.
Court personnel declined to describe Parrella’s health emergency, citing privacy, but his wife and other war court personnel said the colonel had a detached retina that required surgery in the United States. The judge was expected to be airlifted late Tuesday. Parrella’s health situation was not life-threatening, but required emergency surgery, said defense attorney Jay Connell.
But on Wednesday morning, the Marine colonel was still on the island awaiting evacuation, his wife, Jennifer Parella, told McClatchy. She said there was a dispute between the military health provider, Tricare, and an air ambulance firm that, she said, was standing by to take him from Guantánamo to the United States
“The transport company is ready to come get him, but Tricare isn’t making payment, or is haggling about payment or offering to make payment after the fact,” Jennifer Parrella said. “I’m reaching to anybody I can to get him on a plane. He just needs to be in the United States and be in surgery. Now his eye is starting to darken, the fear is he’s going to lose his sight.”
Detached retina? darken?
North Carolina congressman Walter Jones in hospice, wife says
Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) is in hospice care, his wife Joe Anne Jones told NBC affiliate WITN Saturday.
His “health has declined after sustaining a broken hip last week” Jones’ office said in a statement. “He is now in hospice care. The family asks for your prayers, and for their privacy to be respected during this difficult time.”
The 75-year-old representative has not been able to attend votes on the House floor since September because of an undisclosed illness.
Jones underwent surgery for a broken hip on Jan. 15, per WITN.
He has served in Congress for 24 years.
I suffered a detached retina last February and then again in April. I understand what the “darkening” is. When it happened, the eye appears as if a black spider web covered it and because I was out of town, I had to wait until I got back to Pittsburgh (4 day later). Over that period of time, sight became darker. It does require emergency surgery.