Joel Prieur is resigned to wife’s fate

Press, 15 February 1986, Page 2

Joel Prieur is resigned to wife’s fate

PA Auckland Joel Prieur, husband of jailed French secret agent, Dominique Prieur, left New Zealand yesterday resigned to the fact that his wife will serve her full 10-year sentence for her part in last year’s Rainbow Warrior bombing. "I have no reason to be optimistic now,” Mr Prieur told reporters as he left Paremoremo Prison after visiting Alain Mafart, the other French agent jailed after the bombing. The Paris fireman has spent the last two weeks making daily visits to his wife in Christchurch Women’s Prison. He arrived in Auckland on Thursday and called at Paremoremo in the afternoon.

With him was his mother-in-law, Mrs Renee Maire, and Salvation Army Captain Dave Bennet, who befriended the two spies while they were

on remand in Mount Eden Prison.

Mr Prieur took Mafart a collection of French books and magazines, and a message from Dominique Prieur. “She incharged me to say ’hallo’ to Alain, and to say ‘we are in the same boat and we must cope with the situation’.”

Mr Prieur said the pair had a message for the public. “They don’t agree with the term ‘international terrorists’ ... and I don’t agree with it either. What would I call it? (the Rainbow Warrior bombing). I don’t know, I don’t know.”

The French team sent on the. bombing mission had triled to avoid killing anybody, he said, and the sabotage did not compare with acts of terrorism he had seen working as a fire-fighter in Paris. Mr Prieur and Mrs Maire’s trip to New Zealand was paid for by the French Government.