According to a report aired on RBB Inforadio, a German public radio station, on Wednesday, the BND also spied on French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the global Criminal Court in The Hague, and the World Health Organization.
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The relationship between the U.S. and Germany’s intelligence agencies further deteriorated in April 2014 after Snowden documents revealed that NSA spying on Germany was more aggressive than at first believed.
French President Francois Hollande called on Thursday for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to clarify allegations that Germany had tapped the French foreign minister’s phone.
The radio station did not identify the source for its report on BND spying.
The list also included a German diplomat who had from 2008-11 served as head of the European Union observer mission in Georgia, followed by senior European Union postings in Brussels and Turkey. Parliament’s intelligence oversight committees would be informed, she said.
Germany’s Federal intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), spied on the embassies and interior departments of ally countries, and worldwide non-governmental organisations, according to Der Spiegel. Privacy is a sensitive issue in Germany due to extensive surveillance by Communist East Germany’s Stasi secret police and by the Nazi era Gestapo.
Government spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz declined to comment directly on the recent accusation but she told journalists in Berlin that “the duties of the BND do not include political reconnaissance work against partner countries”.
German diplomats are trained to take precautions against spying, but “do not expect to be spied on by the BND”, Martin Schaefer, a foreign ministry spokesman, told the AFP news agency.
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He faces U.S. charges of espionage and theft of state property which could put him in jail for 30 years.
