New Zealand May Sue Over Ship Sinking : Will Go to Court if It Links France to Greenpeace Incident

New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange said today that his country will sue France if its government is found to have been involved in the July sinking of the Greenpeace protest ship Rainbow Warrior.

Lange, speaking at a news conference in Wellington, stressed that he had no evidence the French government was involved in the July 10 sinking of the Greenpeace flagship in Auckland Harbor.

But he said he was “taking very seriously” reports in the French press that a French security agency had planned the sinking.

The Rainbow Warrior, a converted Scottish trawler, was to have led a protest fleet of small boats to the French nuclear testing site at Mururoa Atoll.

New Zealand Position Studied

Lange said the bombing of the ship was clearly directed against Greenpeace and the anti-nuclear movement. He said he had ordered a preliminary assessment of New Zealand’s legal position in the matter.

If it is proved that the French government was involved, New Zealand will file claims on its own behalf and on behalf of Greenpeace, Lange said.

A French-speaking couple have been charged with murder and criminal arson and are being held for trial in New Zealand. Some French newspapers have reported that the pair belong to France’s counterespionage service, and newspapers have alleged that French intelligence was behind the sinking. The pair carried false Swiss passports when they were arrested.

A spokesman for Greenpeace in Paris vowed today to press ahead with its campaign against French nuclear tests in the Pacific despite orders by President Francois Mitterrand authorizing the use of force against its “peace flotilla.”

“This makes no difference at all,” David McTaggart, chairman of the environmentalist group, said of Mitterrand’s directive to the armed forces to keep intruders out of French territorial waters and air space around Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls.