Police dismiss Warrior freighter link

Press, 14 February 1986, Page 4

Police dismiss Warrior freighter link

PA Auckland The police have checked and dismissed a French allegation that explosives which blew up the Rainbow Warrior in July came to Auckland in the freighter Helene Delmas.

Detective Inspector Maurice Whitham, of the Operation Rainbow squad,

said yesterday, “Certainly their claims are not supported by the facts as we know them or by any evidence.”

The allegation was made in a French book about the sinking of the Greenpeace vessel at the

Auckland waterfront on July 10, 1985. The Auckland police checked their own files and evidence relating to the explosives. They found nothing to indicate that the Helene Delmas had carried the explosives for the French secret service team.

The ship, which sailed from Auckland to Lyttelton soon after the bomb-

ing, had been searched and its crew questioned, but nothing was found. The police found traces of explosives in the bilges of the Noumea charter yacht Ouvea which was used by at least three of the French agents involved in the sabotage. Mr Whitham said the claim about the Helene

Delmas no longer interested the Operation Rainbow squad. "I do not know where they got their information from . . . There were other French ships around at the time and to us it was just another French ship that had been in port around July 10.”