Killing of Agents Was Feared, Lange Says

Prime Minister David Lange, who agreed to free two French agents imprisoned in the bombing of a Greenpeace protest ship, said Tuesday that his government had at one time feared that France might attempt to kill the agents to conceal its involvement.

Lange agreed Monday to a U.N.-mediated settlement under which New Zealand would release secret service agents Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart to French custody in exchange for $7 million in compensation and an apology for the sinking of the ship.

The agreement drew widespread criticism in New Zealand on Tuesday. Auckland’s New Zealand Herald newspaper labeled the settlement a “sordid transaction” that would stand as a “contemptible episode” in the country’s history.

A street poll by Wellington’s Evening Post found most people angry that the agents appeared to be getting off lightly, although some said it was more important for the two countries to try to restore relations.

The agents pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to 10-year prison terms last Nov. 22 for their role in blowing up the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbor on July 12, 1985.

Crew Member Killed

The attack, which killed a Greenpeace crew member, occurred just before the ship was to lead a fleet of boats to protest French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.

Author Michael King, in his book “Death of the Rainbow Warrior,” published Tuesday, said France was prepared to send agents to kill Prieur and Mafart in their cells so that its complicity in the bombing would not be known.

Confirming the report, Lange told reporters that his government “thought there was a possibility of an attack on the agents held in jail, and that is why they were transferred into a more secure situation.”

King said “sources close to the French External Security Services” told him “a kill mission would have been carried out had the French government not publicly admitted its responsibility for the attack.

“But after France admitted its responsibility on Sept. 20 last year, there was a fear that the French Secret Service might want to spring” the two agents from jail, King said.

Part of Decoy Plan

In his book, King said 13 agents came to New Zealand last year in an operation to blow up the Rainbow Warrior. He said Mafart and Prieur did not place the bombs on the ship but were part of a decoy plan to draw police away from other agents.

Under Monday’s settlement, New Zealand agreed not to pursue prosecution of the other unnamed agents.

New Zealand’s two biggest newspapers and opposition leaders blasted Lange for reneging on his earlier pledge that the French agents would not be released “during the lifetime of my government.”

“The prime minister had been made to look a fool by the decision to release the two French agents from New Zealand to spend the next three years with family and friends on a Pacific island,” said Opposition National Party leader Jim Bolger.

Under the agreement, the two agents will be handed over to French authorities by July 26 and taken to Hao Atoll in French Polynesia to serve three years in confinement there.

Agreement Defended

Defending his action, Lange said his decision was “at variance” with his pledge but that his government had a choice of “pig-headedly charging forward to compound the damage or to resolve our differences with France through the method of arbitration.”

The New Zealand Herald, which has the largest circulation in the country, said, “The Rainbow Warrior aftermath now stands as a contemptible episode of New Zealand history.”

The Evening News, which took a more conciliatory position, said, “Good riddance to French terrorists Prieur and Mafart.”