German daily, Der Spiegel revealed that former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was among world leaders spied by the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA).

The paper which had revealed this on Saturday said the list came from a NSA secret document in 2009 which had targeted high profiled individuals.

It said the source of the document was former CIA agent, Edward Snowden.

The secret document which had a total of 122 names of world leaders spied by the agency, began with Abdullah.

Apart from him, the list also contained the names of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former Somalia president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad and Syria prime minister Bashar al-Assad.

Former Ukraine prime minister Yulia Tymonshenko was the last name on the list.

The document also revealed that Merkel’s name was placed in the TKB database, a federal agency which stores an individual’s data.

A source with NSA said the agency was allowed to use the database to analyse the complete profile of any individual.

Der Spiegel had before this reported that Snowden had revealed that the US Embassy and the Australia High Commission had spied on Malaysia

Following the revelation, Malaysia had sent protest notes to the heads of the US Embassy and Australia High Commission.