BERLIN, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- A German intelligence service has paid more than 20 German foreign correspondents for spy dispatches, it was reported Monday.
According to German news magazine Focus, the German Federal Intelligence Service, BND, used 20 journalists working in foreign countries as part-time spies between 1998 and 2005. The journalists wrote dispatches for which they were paid between $200 and $1,300, the magazine said, referencing BND files it has seen.
A judge earlier this year had probed the BND when allegations first surfaced that the agency used journalists to get information on colleagues; at the time, a report only named seven journalists working for the service.
In once case, a free-lance journalist was able to open a press office in Eastern Europe with the money he made gathering intelligence.
While it is unknown where the journalists worked and how many of them are still active, the opposition has harshly criticized the cooperation.
Independent journalism would suffer and other correspondents were now in danger of being put under general suspicion of working as spies, Hans-Christian Stroebele, a Green Party lawmaker, told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper.
Stroebele and Free Democrat security expert Max Stadler have called for the issue to be probed in a parliamentary inquiry.
