Dominique Prieur (born 1949) is a French military officer who was convicted of manslaughter over her part in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. [1]
Prieur joined the military in 1974 and was recruited as a secret agent in August 1977. [2]
Prieur worked in the intelligence-gathering and evaluation wing of the French Secret Service, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). She was an expert in European peace organisations and was the controller for Christine Cabon. [3] Cabon was posted to Auckland in April 1985, where she infiltrated the Greenpeace office and gathered information for Prieur and her fellow agent Alain Mafart. [3] In July 1985, Prieur and Mafart entered New Zealand from Corsica on Swiss passports issued to their aliases Sophie and Alain Turenge, a newlywed couple on honeymoon. [4] [5] Their instructions were to sink the Rainbow Warrior as the French government suspected that it would be used to protest the upcoming nuclear tests at Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific. [4] Prieur's responsibilities were the logistics of the operation, and the evacuation of the agents from the country after the bombing had taken place. [6]
Prieur and Mafart delivered limpet mines to two frogmen to plant on the ship's hull on the night of 10 July 1985. [7] The explosions sank the vessel and killed photographer Fernando Pereira. [1] [4]
They were arrested by New Zealand police within 30 hours of the bombing, and originally charged with Pereira's murder. [8] Prieur was transferred to Christchurch Women's Prison and held there awaiting trial. [9] Prieur pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and wilful damage in the Auckland District Court, and was sentenced to ten years imprisonment on 22 November 1985. [9] [10] [11] After serious political pressure from France and her allies, [12] the New Zealand government agreed to a United Nations arbitration ruling in July 1986 that saw the pair transferred to French custody on the island of Hao in French Polynesia.
Prieur's husband, Joel Prieur, an employee of the Defense Department, was posted to Hao shortly after she was exiled there. [13] On 6 May 1988 she was returned to France because she was pregnant, and was heralded as a national hero. [13] [14] She never returned to Hao.
Although a UN Arbitration panel found that France had breached its obligation to New Zealand several times by removing the agents from Hao, and failing to return them, it rejected the claim by New Zealand to have Mafart and Prieur returned because the term they should have spent there had already lapsed.
In 1989, Prieur was promoted to Major, [5] and by 2002 she had been promoted to the rank of Commandant. [9]
Prieur published a book "Agent secrète" (Secret Agent) in 1995 concerning her role in the bombing. With regards to the death of Pereira, she wrote "We were terrified and appalled ... We hadn't come here to kill anyone." [15]
In 2005, Prieur and Marfart appealed to the New Zealand Supreme Court to stop footage of their guilty pleas being shown on television. [16] The supreme court allowed the footage to go on the air. [16]
In 2009, Prieur was hired as the director of human resources for the Paris Fire Brigade, a unit of the French Army. [15] [17]
Fernando Pereira was a Portuguese-Dutch freelance photographer, who drowned when French intelligence (DGSE) detonated a bomb and sank the Rainbow Warrior, owned by the environmental organisation Greenpeace on 10 July 1985.
The sinking of Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was a state terrorism bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence agency, the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, Rainbow Warrior, at the Port of Auckland on her way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.
Ouvéa, named after Ouvéa Island, was the name of a yacht used by three DGSE agents to import the naval mines used to sink the Greenpeace protest yacht Rainbow Warrior in 1985, killing photographer Fernando Pereira. The Ouvéa was sailed to Norfolk Island after the bombing. After New Zealand Police arrested two other agents still in New Zealand, the Ouvéa set to sea and was scuttled, while the crew transferred to the French submarine Rubis, to make their escape.
David Telfer Robie is a New Zealand author, journalist and media educator who has covered the Asia-Pacific region for international media for more than four decades. Robie is the author of several books on South Pacific media and politics and is an advocate for media freedom in the pacific region.
Eugène Charles Hernu was a French socialist politician. He served as Minister of Defence from 1981 to 1985, until forced to resign over the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand.
Peter Willcox is an American sea captain best known for his activism with the environmental organization Greenpeace. He was on board as captain of the Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed and sunk by the DGSE in New Zealand in 1985.
Alain Mafart is a French military officer best known for his part in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.
Gérard Royal is a former agent of the French intelligence agency Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, who is accused of being one of those responsible for the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior. A long serving officer, who retired from the French Army with the rank of Colonel, Royal works in an "economic intelligence business". He is the brother of former French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal.
New Zealand has experienced few terrorist incidents in its short history and the threat is generally regarded as very low. However, the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) has warned against complacency. This article serves as a list and compilation of past acts of terrorism, attempts of terrorism, and other such items pertaining to terrorist activities within New Zealand. Significant acts of terrorism include the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985, an act of state-sponsored terrorism by France, and the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, a far-right attack which resulted in 51 deaths and 40 injuries.
In 1984, Prime Minister David Lange banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using New Zealand ports or entering New Zealand waters. Under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, territorial sea, land and airspace of New Zealand became nuclear-free zones. This has since remained a part of New Zealand's foreign policy.
The Rainbow Warrior is a 1993 made-for-television drama film directed by Michael Tuchner and starring Jon Voight and Sam Neill.
The Rainbow Warrior Case was a dispute between New Zealand and France that arose in the aftermath of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. It was arbitrated by UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in 1986, and became significant in the subject of public international law for its implications on state responsibility.
France–New Zealand relations are the international relations between New Zealand and France. Relations between France and New Zealand have been rocky at times, but more recently have become much closer. Bilateral relations have been generally good since World War I and World War II, with both countries working closely during the conflicts, but the relationship was severely jeopardised by the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland on 10 July 1985 by French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) agents.
Rainbow Warrior was a Greenpeace ship involved in campaigns against whaling, seal hunting, nuclear testing and nuclear waste dumping during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure bombed Rainbow Warrior in the Port of Auckland, New Zealand on 10 July 1985, sinking the ship and killing photographer Fernando Pereira.
Rainbow Warrior was a three-masted schooner most notable for service with the environmental protection organization Greenpeace. She was built to replace the original Rainbow Warrior that the French intelligence service (DGSE) bombed in 1985 in the Port of Auckland, New Zealand, which sank the ship and killed photographer Fernando Pereira.
Portuguese New Zealanders are either Portuguese who migrated to New Zealand, or New Zealanders of Portuguese descent. According to the latest 2018 New Zealand census, 447 residents of the country declared Portugal to be the place of their birth, and it is estimated that Portuguese migrants and their descendants number approximately 1,365, up from 900 in 2006, and 1000 in 1996.
Louis-Pierre Dillais is a French businessman. He acknowledged his involvement with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in an interview with New Zealand State broadcaster TVNZ in 2005. Admiral Pierre Lacoste said in 2005 to the New Zealand Herald that Dillais was not part of the "third team".
The Rainbow Warrior Conspiracy is a 1988 Australian-New Zealand mini series based on the Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. It was written by David Phillips, and directed by Chris Thomson, and stars Jack Thompson, Brad Davis and Germain Houde.
Gillian Mary Hanly is a New Zealand artist. She is best known for documenting protests and social movements in New Zealand's recent history.
Stephen Gregory Sawyer was an American environmentalist and activist. He served as a leader of Greenpeace for nearly 30 years, including two decades as executive director. While on a mission to stop French nuclear testing in French Polynesia, he survived France's bombing of the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior, which occurred on his 29th birthday.