LEAD: Anonymous boasts German break-in, but files were public

Feb 8, 2012, 15:22 GMT

Berlin - Hackers from the group Anonymous said Wednesday they had cracked security to access German legislative files, but the parliament in Berlin said the 'leaked' files had already been made public.

The documents, posted online by the hackers, detail German military operations in Afghanistan and some are marked 'secret.' Anonymous said it obtained the data by breaking into a server at the Bundestag, or German parliament.

The group has claimed responsibility for a series of leaks of confidential data worldwide in the past year.

However a parliamentary spokeswoman said all the data had already been made public in the final report of an inquiry into a September 2009 airstrike by US jets under German orders that is believed to have killed 91 Taliban fighters and Afghan civilians.

The official report contained hyperlinks to facsimiles of the documents, which were still stamped 'secret' or 'confidential,' although they had been declassified and published as appendices to the report.

The inquiry criticized the 2009 airstrike in its report, published in October.