BERLIN, April 4 (UPI) -- Germany's federal police have spied on journalists for dealing with classified terror files, a German TV show said Wednesday.
Between 2002 and 2004 Germany's Federal Criminal Office, or BKA, which also combats terror, has spied on journalists working for the news magazine Focus to find a BKA leak, the TV magazine Panorama said in a statement.
Apparently, a leading Focus journalist at the time had established "a flourishing trade with secret terror files," Panorama said, one day before its report is due to be broadcast on German national television.
It previously surfaced that Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, spied on journalists, but the BKA's involvement has so far been unknown.
The operation was launched after an undercover agent was approached by a Focus journalist shortly after his classified testimony warning the BKA of terrorist plans.
A Munich prosecution office launched an investigation in which "millions of telephone connections" were collected and evaluated to prove the illegal ties between the BKA and the magazine. Observation teams followed journalists over a period of two years, Panorama found.
The investigation was suspended in June 2004 after BKA agents failed to identify the leak within the agency.
