German MPs to hold special session on US spy claims

The German parliament will hold a special session next month to assess the impact of mass US surveillance including the alleged tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel phone, deputies said today.
The heads of the parliamentary groups of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats, the two parties in talks on forming the next German government, agreed to call the debate on November 18, a CDU spokesman said.
Until now leftist opposition deputies had led calls for a special parliamentary hearing on the suspicion that surfaced last week that US spies had been monitoring Merkel's communications.
Merkel confronted US President Barack Obama last Wednesday with evidence uncovered in classified documents provided by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Several deputies have called for Snowden, who has sought asylum at a secret location in Russia, to be summoned to give evidence in a probe of the National Security Agency's activities in Germany.
Federal prosecutors also said last week that they had opened a preliminary investigation into whether German laws were broken during US surveillance operations.
A justice ministry spokesman told a regular government news conference that there was no legal obstacle to inviting Snowden to testify "provided that he is in a position where he is now to have an address to receive an invitation".