NEW YORK (AFP) - WikiLeaks published thousands of documents on April 16 from last year's Sony hacking scandal, calling them an insight into the inner workings of a "secretive" firm.

The website said the searchable data dump includes 30,287 documents from the US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment and 173,132 e-mails to and from more than 2,200 company e-mail addresses.

The same data was released online after hackers attacked Sony Pictures last November and threatened the company over the release of the comedy film The Interview, which depicts a fictional CIA plot to kill North Korea's leader.

The threats saw Sony cancel the public debut of the movie and led to the resignation of chairman Amy Pascal. The leaks showed that Pascal had swapped racially insensitive jokes about President Barack Obama over e-mail.

Washington blamed North Korea for the hack.

"Now published in a fully searchable format The Sony Archives offer a rare insight into the inner workings of a large, secretive multinational corporation," WikiLeaks said in a statement. It said the original release was not searchable and was removed before the public and journalists could scrutinise them.

WikiLeaks described Sony as an influential corporation with ties to the White House, able to impact laws and policies, and with connections to the US military-industrial complex.

"It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict," said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who lives at Ecuador's embassy in London to avoid prosecution for alleged rape in Sweden. "It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there," the Australian former hacker said.

Sony condemned the re-release of the data, saying the private information does not belong in the public domain and WikiLeaks is helping the hackers' efforts to harm employees.

"The cyber-attack on Sony Pictures was a malicious criminal act, and we strongly condemn the indexing of stolen employee and other private and privileged information on WikiLeaks," Sony said in a statement.

The data indicates company CEO Michael Lynton dined with Obama and Sony employees raised money for the Democratic Party and incumbent Democrat New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, WikiLeaks said.

Sony Pictures Entertainment is a multi-billion-dollar US subsidiary of the Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. It handles film and TV production, acquisition and distribution.