German investigators probe role of Merkel's office in spy scandal

Germany's top public prosecutor is investigating the possible involvement of Chancellor Angela Merkel's office in the country's escalating spy scandal amid signs the affair is denting public confidence in Europe's strongest leader.

Harald Range confirmed on Wednesday that he was probing the chancellery's role in allegations that the BND foreign intelligence service helped the American NSA to focus on European targets, including the Airbus aerospace group and the French presidency.

The BND intensified collaboration with the NSA in the war against Islamist terror that followed the September 2001 New York attacks. The allegation is the BND may have exceeded the politically agreed limits and possibly infringed German law.

Mr Range told MPs in a closed-door parliamentary committee hearing that the information he was seeking included highly sensitive so-called "selectors" - telephone numbers, email addresses and web sites - which the US agency asked the BND to target with electronic surveillance, according to German media reports.

Mr Range's disclosure came as an opinion poll for the Bild newspaper showed that the scandal is hitting Ms Merkel's personal standing - despite her best efforts to keep a low profile since the affair broke last month. According to the survey, 62 per cent of those polled said the affair had damaged her reputation, including 54 per cent among supporters of her conservative CDU party.

The scandal has given the chancellor's political opponents a rare opportunity to attack her personally after years in which she has seemed invincible, enjoying widespread support in the German public.

The opposition Green and Linke parties are calling for full parliamentary investigation of the affair, including into the NSA's selection lists and the chancellery's role as the BND's supervisor. So are social democrats, Ms Merkel's coalition partners, with party leader Sigmar Gabriel, seizing on the chance to put pressure on the chancellor. He said this week: "Parliament must know whether there was not a criminal offence committed at the BND in its co-operation with the NSA. The media must know this too."

CDU MPs in an open parliamentary debate on Wednesday closed ranks behind the chancellor, saying that international co-operation was vital in security work. They conceded that mistakes may have been made but, as one said, "not every mistake is a scandal".

Ms Merkel herself said in a radio interview that she would be ready to answer questions before a parliamentary committee investigating NSA espionage in Germany. No date has been set for such an appearance but the chancellor is not expected to rush to the committee rooms.

Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere, who, as Ms Merkel's chief of staff in 2005-2009, was responsible for political oversight of the BND, on Wednesday was questioned by the same parliamentary committee as Mr Range - showing how deep to the centre of power MPs are already delving. Speaking to journalists, he repeated earlier declarations that he had done nothing wrong.

German media have reported that the BND excluded some 40,000 selectors provided by the NSA, possibly on the grounds that they did not meet the BND's own legal criteria. A report to the chancellery in 2008, when Mr de Maiziere was the responsible minister, reportedly discussed the extent of the agency's co-operation with the NSA. But Mr de Maiziere has said this did not go into detail.

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