Transfer for two agents ruled out

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 9

Transfer for two agents ruled out

NZPA-AFP Paris Informed sources at the French Ministry of Justice yesterday ruled out a New Zealand suggestion that two French secret agents, jailed for their part in the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior, could be transferred to a French prison. There is no convention between the two countries allowing prisoner transfers, the sources said. The only possible solution would be an ad hoc agreement between the two countries, but this seemed unlikely in the present climate, they said. The New Zealand Prime Minister, Mr Lange, said that his country could consider releasing the two if “there are guarantees that they are going to be imprisoned” by France.

But he told a press conference that, given their 10year sentences for manslaughter, it was “totally unrealistic to talk about them having any form of release anywhere in the near future.”

Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur were sentenced last month by the New Zealand High Court for the July 10 bombing in Auckland Harbour that left one man dead and triggered a political scandal in France.

Mr Lange, responding to a question on whether it was possible for the Government to do a deal with France to transfer the pair to a French jail, said: “I don’t think it is, but if it were, I would take a very realistic look at it ... I want to know that there are guarantees and they Are going to be imprisoned.”