France Denies Sinking Ship, But Admits 6 Were Agents : Greenpeace Vessel Sunk in Auckland

An official investigator today cleared France and its intelligence officials of responsibility in the bombing of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, but the report identified six people implicated by New Zealand in the July 10 attack as French secret service agents.

Investigator Bernard Tricot’s report said there is no convincing evidence that the six were involved in the attack. It did not pinpoint blame for the sinking.

The six agents include a man and a woman formally charged by New Zealand authorities with murder, conspiracy and criminal arson.

Tricot identified the two as Capt. Dominique Prieur and Maj. Alain Mafart, both military officers and agents of the French General Directorate of External Security, or DGSE, France’s secret service.

A Portuguese-born photographer on the Rainbow Warrior, Fernando Pereira, 36, was killed when two limpet mines attached to the ship’s hull exploded while the vessel was anchored in Auckland, New Zealand. The Rainbow Warrior was preparing to lead a flotilla into French South Pacific waters to protest French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll.

3 Freed in Paris

Three of the six people identified in the report showed up today at police headquarters in Paris and were released, officials said. The three were among four people who had been in New Zealand aboard the yacht Ouvea and were sought by New Zealand police in connection with the attack.

The government-appointed investigator identified the three as Roland Verge, with the DGSE for 11 years; Sgt. J. M. Bartelo, with the DGSE for four years, and Sgt. Gerald Andries, with it for six years. Tricot said all three worked with the service’s school for frogmen in Corsica.

The sixth agent was identified only as Dubast, who was in Noumea, New Caledonia, in June to assure that the Ouvea and its crew were not being watched.

Tricot said reasons to suppose that the three who presented themselves today are responsible for the attack “are not negligible.” But “other considerations plead for their innocence,” he said.

“Everything I have heard and seen leaves me with the certitude that, at the government level, no decision was taken aimed at damaging the Rainbow Warrior,” Tricot, a respected Gaullist political figure, said.

Limited to Surveillance

Tricot’s 29-page report revealed that French agents were sent to New Zealand to gather intelligence on the Greenpeace mission, infiltrate the environmental group and eventually take part in future protest flotillas.

That mission was strictly limited to surveillance and had President Francois Mitterrand’s personal approval, the report said. Tricot said no convincing evidence emerged that agents exceeded or misinterpreted their orders and sabotaged the Rainbow Warrior.

Tricot, a former chief of staff to the late President Charles de Gaulle, was asked on French television today who was behind the sinking, if not France and its intelligence service.

“I simply do not know,” said Tricot,

But his report advanced two theories: “Men acting alone, motivated notably by political passion,” or the secret service of some other nation seeking to embarrass France and jeopardize France’s military nuclear program.