French vessel ‘smuggled mines’

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 2

French vessel ‘smuggled mines’

NZPA-Reuter Paris The mines which blew up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour last July were smuggled into New Zealand in a French , container ship, the weekly magazine, "Paris Match,” reported yesterday. In a new account of the attack on the Rainbow Warrior, in which a Greenpeace crew member was killed, the magazine said the mines were hidden on board the 20,394-tbn Helene Delmas, which berthed at Auckland on the morning of July 10. The magazine said the mines were retrieved by a businessman, an “honourable correspondent” of the D.G.S.E., the French secret service. They were placed on the hull of the Rainbow Warrior by French frogmen during the afternoon of the same day.

Christchurch police boarded the Helene Delmas when she berthed at Lyttelton three days after the bombing. However, nothing was found linking the ship or

her crew, to the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.

Senior-Sergeant Trevor Tozer, of the Auckland C. 1.8., said at the time that interviews with the crew of the Helene Delmars had not assisted the police investigation. France admitted in September that the D.G.S.E. blew’ up the Rainbow Warrior, but it has never said which of its agents placed the mines. The New Zealand police found no conclusive evidence.

Two French agents, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, are serving 10-year jail terms for manslaughter for their part in the affair. Three others, Roland Verge, Jean-Michel Bartelo and Gerald Andries, escaped to France after brief questioning by the New Zealand police on the Australian territory of Norfolk Island three days after the bombing. “Paris Match” said that it was these three, the crew of the yacht Ouvea, who placed the mines that blew up the Greenpeace ship. It said that the over-all

commander of the operation in Auckland, Philippe Dubast, and another French agent, went back to the Rainbow Warrior in the evening of July 10 to check that the mines were still in place. “Paris Match” said the fourth crew member, Dr Xavier Maniguet played a key- role in arranging the escape of the three frogmen by carrying a message from Norfolk Island to D.G.S.E. agents in Australia.

While the Ouvea sailed towards New Caledonia, observing radio silence except to give false reports of its position, Dr Maniguet met his contact on behalf off the three frogmen, asking that plans for them to sail back to New Caledonia or be whisked back to an Australian port by a fast pleasure boat be scrapped. Instead they were transferred to a French fishing boat from New Caledonia, and the Ouvea was scuttled. The three frogmen were then picked up by a French military helicopter and brought to Noumea.