Providers available through a vendor are subject to the vendor’s credentialing process and requirements, not MetLife’s. relations.1 Savings from enrolling in a MetLife vision benefits plan will depend on various factors including, the cost of the plan, how often participants visit an eye-care professional and the cost of services and eyewear received.Ģ Certain providers may participate with MetLife through an agreement that MetLife has with a vendor. The El-Masri case has been a sore point in otherwise good German-U.S. In a separate case, Italian authorities are seeking the arrest of 26 Americans, all but one believed to be CIA agents, in connection with the 2003 kidnapping in Milan of Egyptian cleric and terror suspect Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr. In October, Munich prosecutors said that, based on the list, they were seeking to ban several CIA agents suspected of kidnapping El-Masri from entering German territory. The report last year gave what it said were the cover names of three men who were pilots and lived in the U.S. The CIA agents are suspected to have flown in January 2004 aboard a Boeing 737 from the Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca to pick up El-Masri after he had been detained by Macedonian authorities, Munich prosecutor August Stern said.ĪRD public television has reported that investigators worked from passport photocopies made by a hotel where the suspects stayed, but Stern said he could not confirm that or other details. Schmidt-Sommerfeld did not elaborate on what the tips were. Tips were also received from others, including the Milan prosecutor's office and Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who led an inquiry into CIA renditions on behalf of the Council of Europe. With help from Spanish authorities, they were then able to pursue an investigation against "concrete persons," Schmidt-Sommerfeld said. Prosecutors were led to the suspects after receiving a list in December 2005 of possible people involved in the kidnapping compiled by a Spanish journalist from sources within Spain's Civil Guard, a paramilitary police unit that answers to the Interior Ministry, Schmidt-Sommerfeld said. "It shows us that we were right in putting our trust in the German authorities and the German prosecutors," he said at a news conference. Gnjidic said the issuance of the arrest warrants were "a very important step in the rehabilitation of El-Masri." "Further investigation will, among other things, concentrate on trying to determine the clear identities of the suspects," he said in a statement. Though the prosecutors' office refused to confirm the names, Schmidt-Sommerfeld said "the personal details contained in the arrest warrants are, according to our current knowledge, aliases of CIA agents." It said three had been contacted by its reporters and had refused comment. Germany's NDR television released a list of the names of the suspected agents - 11 men and 2 women - it said its reporters had obtained. The German government refused comment on the arrest warrants, citing the ongoing judicial proceedings. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the United States has acknowledged making a mistake with El-Masri. officials have declined to address the case. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. where they could face abuse - a practice known as "extraordinary rendition." Italy has issued arrest warrants for alleged CIA agents in a separate case. Rights campaigners have seized on El-Masri's story to press the United States to stop flying terrorism suspects to countries other than the U.S. "They don't accept what happened to their citizen – the detainment and torture," he said.Įl-Masri, the attorney said, still wants an apology from the American government. Gnjidic said he is waiting for the report of a German parliamentary inquiry. "This is only one step in a long way to go." "The reaction of Khaled is that he is very satisfied," Gnjidic told CBS News. El-Masri's German attorney Manfred Gnjidic called the prosecutors' move "a mighty sign."
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