The Rainbow Warrior - 3. Behind every daring spy is a miserly bean- counter demanding a receipt. That may be the single most significant factor in the French government being exposed as the perpetrator of one of the most outrageous acts of terrorism on a friendly country. Waiting for a modest refund led to the capture of two of the dozen or more saboteurs who came to New Zealand and in turn the unmasking of the French government operation to sink the Rainbow Warrior. Fernando and daughter Marelle(source: Greenpeace) Just before midnight on July 1.
Greenpeace flagship that was to lead a flotilla to Moruroa atoll to protest against French nuclear testing. The Rainbow Warrior sank in four minutes. Portuguese- born crew member, Fernando Pereira, drowned after going to his cabin to retrieve his camera gear. By morning it was known that the source of the explosions came from outside of the hull, enabling investigation head, Detective Superintendent Allan Galbraith to comment, . Four Frenchmen, claiming to be on a winter yachting holiday in Northland, made themselves conspicuous almost everywhere they went.
An abandoned French- made inflatable was located shortly before the explosions and an outboard motor soon after. The driver of the inflatable was reported getting into a campervan on Tamaki Drive a few hours before the bombs went off. Alert citizens noted the number plate. NZ Herald, 1. 1 July 1.
Detectives caught up with Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur on the morning of July 1. Newman. They could have walked out. They could have just left the campervan on the side of the road, got on the flight and they would have been gone. They could have used the Swiss passports they flew in on as police had yet to discover they were fake, that Mafart was using the identity of a dead man. Read the Police Summary of Facts According to the police statement of facts tabled in court, they were in Hamilton the day before from where they telephoned their DGSE contact in Paris in a panic.
Police traced the number to the French defence ministry. The accountants at the DGSE . Another team of agents used a yacht, the Ouv. When New Zealand police caught up with the crew in Norfolk Island five days after the bombing, a search of the boat turned up a receipt from the Dome Valley tearooms, north of Auckland. It had been doctored . The mission to disable the ship was achieved but a catalogue of errors ensured lasting embarrassment for the French.
In the New Zealand of 3. It is an insular country, distant, withdrawn, which does not think for a second that it will get caught up in the turbulence of the world From the nosey, blunt, scout, Christine Cabon who posed as scientist Frederique Bonlieu to infiltrate Greenpeace. The mission, he wrote in his book, The Secret Diaries of a Combat Diver, was ill- conceived, executed in haste and based on a dismal ignorance of New Zealand, . Operation Satanique was launched in April and the attack scheduled for mid- July. The DGSE preferred to blame amateurish behaviour of some of the saboteurs.
They supposedly set them to go off during the party. The French have claimed this was to guard against loss of life because the party was on the relative safety of the upper deck. However, many in the peace movement see this as propaganda and point to factors such as that no warning was given, the blasts were at night and the bombs were of a size to rapidly sink the ship as indications the intention was to kill in order to strike fear into the hearts of all crews of vessels planning to go to Moruroa. Said Greenpeace New Zealand. The bomb blew a hole the size of a truck at our waterline and sunk the Warrior in four minutes. A bomb is not a warning. By now the frogmen who placed the bombs had disappeared into the night and the inflatable, helmed by one man, headed towards Okahu Bay looking for an easier landing place along the waterfront, with the Turenges trying to track it in their campervan.
According to French media reports, the driver was G. Constable Stephen Drain with theoutboard motor The dinghy and its driver were seen by two fishermen and a cyclist on his way under Ngapipi Road bridge and into Hobson Bay. One reported hearing a splash under the bridge from where an outboard motor was later recovered. Next, men on neighbourhood watch duties at the Auckland Boating Club in Hobson Bay saw a dinghy being pulled from the water. They watched as bags from the dinghy were loaded by two men into a campervan.
Convinced they were watching the aftermath of a burglary, the boating club members noted the camper. It was noted that the serial number was missing from the French- made Zodiac. Next morning at the first Auckland CIB briefing about the bombing, Verlet. Sometime during the day the report about the strange rendezvous of the dinghy and the campervan was followed up, even though the sighting was nearly three hours before the bombs went off.
Rebecca Hayter and her flatmates returned from the movies 2. It was from a colleague from Newmans rentals asking her to ring urgently, the police were at the office asking about the Turenges. Hayter, now editor of Boating New Zealand, had been working for the company for just a few months while she took a break after university and contemplated a career in journalism. The couple were neat and tidy, she told police.
He was friendly, she wasn. When she offered to help transfer their gear into the replacement campervan, Mafart was polite but firm. They had been scheduled to leave in in Wellington a week later. What happened next handed detectives their first big break.
Hayter and other staff called the police and concocted a ruse of a refund to delay the pair. They would have to wait for a manager to arrive to sign the cheque, the Turenges were told. Detectives had found their car blocked in the Auckland Central station carpark and lost time before commandeering the boss.
For Hayter, it seemed to take an age for them to arrive. Meanwhile, management types (suits and briefcases) arrived and disappeared into offices. The Turenges became edgy. Hayter looked up from a back office to see Mafart staring intensely . Hayter quickly approached and whispered, . Had they known that the law at the time did not allow police to hold suspects on suspicion of terrorism, they could have insisted on catching their flight which was departing in a few hours. The pair were held from 9am until midnight.
A French spy convicted of the fatal Rainbow Warrior bombing has hit headlines again, as a finalist in a celebrated wildlife photography contest. New Zealand taxpayers are again being forced to prop up the Hurunui irrigation dams and will get dirty rivers and increasing rural debt in return, Greenpeace said today. Explore Susanne Andreassen's board 'Maori' on Pinterest, the world's catalog of ideas. The Rainbow Warrior has docked in Auckland’s CBD today for a week-long visit, the first time in more than two years.
In breaks from questioning, a French- speaking policeman sat with them in a room reading a newspaper. Mafart would reassure Prieur that they would get through this. The next day, police followed as they booked new flights at a Queen St travel agency. The false Swiss passports in the names of Alain and Sophie Turenge By July 1. Swiss documents were fake. The pair were arrested for making false immigration declarations.
That served as a charge to hold them on. By the end of the month they had been charged with murder, conspiring to commit arson and wilfully damaging the Rainbow Warrior. When police searched the Ouvea after it arrived at Norfolk Island on July 1. As well as traces of explosives, Mafart. That gave the lie to Mafart. The address led to a Greenpeace member and in turn to the discovery of the scouting role played by Christine Cabon. Local law gave the detectives just 2.
Dr Xavier Maniguet, had left for Sydney before the detectives arrived), far too little time for the evidence to be processed. The Ouvea was allowed to sail for its stated destination of Noumea. The yacht is believed to have been scuttled and the crew picked up by a French Navy vessel. But France. Heads began to role up the ranks. Two months after the bombing, Defence Minister Charles Hernu fell on his sword.
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A week later it was the turn of his spy chief, Admiral Pierre Lacoste. In November, Mafart and Prieur pleaded guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter and wilful damage and were sentenced to 1. Sir Ronald Davison. Most of their time served was spent in comfort on Hao atoll, in French Polynesia, to where Prieur. The new French defence minister welcomed Prieur as she stepped off the plane in France, while Mafart received promotions and was decorated by Paris. Eleven years after the bombing, France ended its nuclear tests in Polynesia following further protests by Greenpeace and Pacific interests.