The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropped on phone calls involving German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her closest advisers for a long time and on a larger scale than previously thought, WikiLeaks has revealed.
A report released by the group on Wednesday suggested NSA tapped 125 phone numbers of top German officials for long-term surveillance, reported The Guardian.
WikiLeaks published three NSA intercepts of Merkel’s conversations and data that listed phone numbers for the chancellor, her aides, her office and even her fax machine.
The international, non-profit, journalistic organisation said that the names associated with some of the targets suggested that NSA spying on German Chancellery predated Angela Merkel. It even included former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who was in office between 1998 and 2002, and his predecessor Helmut Kohl.
The revelation could foster new tension in U.S.-Germany ties, a month after they sought to put behind another row over NSA spying, with President Barack Obama saying in Bavaria that the two nations were ‘inseparable allies’.
No comment was immediately available from the German regime.
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