Germany’s federal prosecutor said yesterday he had dropped a formal investigation into allegations of eavesdropping on one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phones by a US intelligence agency because of a lack of concrete evidence.
A German news report in October 2013 that the National Security Agency had tapped one of Dr Merkel’s private mobile telephones prompted outrage among citizens already angry over previous reports of the widespread gathering of telecommunications data by United States and British intelligence services.
After coming under pressure from parliament and the news media, federal prosecutor Harald Range opened a formal investigation last June into the allegations.
But Mr Range said in a statement yesterday investigators had not been able to prove that the document was “an authentic eavesdropping order from the NSA, or another US intelligence agency” or that it concretely showed the chancellor’s phone had been tapped.
– (New York Times service)
