The federal court of justice in Germany announced an investigation into the alleged tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone on Wednesday.

The investigation was formally launched by Chief Prosecutor Harold Range on Tuesday, nearly half a year since Edward Snowden revealed that the U.S. government had been listening in on Merkel's phone conversations last October, according to Fox News.

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"Extensive preliminary investigations have established that sufficient factual evidence exists that unknown members of U.S. intelligence services spied on the mobile phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel," the prosecutor's office said.

Moreover, a separate investigation has also been opened on whether NSA surveillance is also being conducted on German citizens, according to AFP.

It is unclear as to how this will directly impact the already-strained relations between the 2 nations after the tapping incident had been revealed.

Merkel described the incident as a "grave" violation of trust and publicly asked for an explanation as to why it had occurred, BBC learned.

She also asked for President Barack Obama to stop communications surveillance to avoid damaging diplomatic ties with Germany and other allies.

A spokesman for Merkel had declined to comment on how the investigations will impact the country's relations with the U.S. Instead, he said that the government had not influenced the prosecutor's decision to open the investigation.

"I am not going to evaluate here the decision he has made," he added.

In response, Obama acknowledged Germany's outrage at the breach of privacy.

Early this year, he announced that NSA surveillance of world leaders of ally countries will be stopped, while surveillance on private citizens will be done with restraint.

However, he added that this will only apply to cases which do not threaten national security.

Meanwhile, the German Parliament had established a committee to investigate the extent of NSA's surveillance practices.

Opposition parties reportedly want to bring Snowden to Berlin to testify however the government believes that this would further strain relations with the U.S.

Tagsangela merkel, chancellor merkel, hacking, surveillance, spying, phone tapping, NSA, national security, Edward Snowden, intelligence surveillance, cyber spying, cyber espionage, World News, Barack Obama, harold range, Germany