Lufthansa admits spying on reporter

HAMBURG, Germany, June 7 (UPI) -- Lufthansa Airlines has admitted spying on an employee of a business newspaper to track down who was leaking information about it, a German magazine reports.

Der Spiegel reported Saturday that airline officials said they examined frequent flier records to glean information about the employee of Financial Times Deutschland, a former journalist who, in the 1990s, frequently reported boardroom details for the newspaper and the magazine Capital. The admission came after Lufthansa earlier said it hired a private security firm to in investigate a current Financial Times journalist.

The magazine said Lufthansa officials suspected a board member of leaking the information, and in an effort to identify the journalist to whom he had spoken, checked flight data and quickly found the Financial Times employee in an internal computer system called "Corona."

A Lufthansa spokesman denied anything illegal had been done.