Agents move unpopular

Press, 9 July 1986, Page 8

Agents move unpopular

PA Wellington New Zealanders disapprove of the release to a small Pacific atoll of the two French agents jailed for their part in the Rainbow Warrior bombing, according to a television poll broadcast last evening. An “Eye-Witness News” report said 63 per cent of 300 people telephoned at random in Auckland and Christchurch yesterday disagreed with the solu-

tion to the dispute as put forward by the United Nations Secretary-Gen-eral, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar. Only 30 per cent said they approved. The poll has an eror rate of between plus or minus 5 per cent. Opinion was about even, however, on the question of whether the dispute should have been referred to arbitration.

The agents, Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart,*

will be sent to the island of Hao, near Mururoa, where the French conduct nuclear tests.

They were jailed for 10 years last year after pleading guilty to manslaughter after the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior on July 10, 1985, in which a Greenpeace photographer died. Mr Perez de Cuellar ruled that they should spend three years on Hao, leaving New Zealand on or before July 25.