Solicitor-General clears way for agents to leave

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 1

Solicitor-General clears way for agents to leave

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

The two French agents will have left New Zealand in the early hours of this morning if arrangements with France went according to plan.

The Minister of Immigration, Mr Burke, would have signed their release orders just after midnight when the 28-day appeal period against their deportation expired.

This would have allowed them to be released from New Zealand custody so that they could be flown from Whenuapai air base under cover of darkness in an R.N.Z.A.F. aircraft and delivered into French keeping at Wallis Island, the point of transfer. This was all but confirmed by a Television New Zealand report that all civil flights to Wallis Island had been cancelled until today by the French Government because of what was described as "a sensitive military operation."

The reporter was informed of the cancellation along with other passengers as he was waiting at New Caledonia’s Tontouta Airport last evening to catch the bi-weekly Air Caledonie flight to Wallis Island.

The announcement cemented speculation that the agents — Major Alain Mafart and Captain Dominique Prieur — were to leave New Zealand at 3 a.m. today unless a lastminute hitch aborted plans.

Rumours to this effect had been circulating since Monday but achieved a new level of certainty when it was announced yesterday afternoon that a stay of proceedings had been filed and accepted in the District Court at Auckland rendering void the private prosecution brought by Mr Colin Amery, a self-styled psychic.

The order was filed on behalf of the SolicitorGeneral, Mr Paul Neazor, Q.C., now in London on Privy Council business.

Mr Neazor ordered the stay under provisions in the Summary Proceedings Act, 1957, and the Crimes Act, 1961. Mr Amery had charged Mafart and Prieur with showing a reckless disregard for the safety of the

crew of the bombed Rainbow Warrior in delivering explosives to two fellow French agents. Absolute confirmation of the transfer details was not available before “The Press” went to print this morning as both France and New Zealand were maintaining a strict silence. Spokesmen in the Prime Minister’s office and in the French Embassy said the two Governments believed secrecy was required of them under the ruling of the United Nations’ Secre-tary-General, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar. In his judgment, issued earlier this month, Mr Perez de Cuellar ruled that the agents should be “prohibited from any contact with the press or other media whether in person or in writing or in any other manner” and directed that these conditions should be "strictly complied with.” This stricture has apparently been interpreted by both countries to include the transfer although there were also solid security reasons for treating the matter as

confidential. Had Mr Neazor not intervened, Mr Amery’s action may have frustrated the July 25 deadline imposed by Mr Perez de Cuellar’s settlement. Mr Perez de Cuellar ruled that by this date France must apologise to New Zealand for the bombing and pay SUS 7 million compensation and that New Zealand must in turn hand over Mafart and Prieur. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, has said the terms will be complied with simultaneously or as a package. This means that if the agents are now in French custody, New Zealand should have received the SUS 7 million payment and the required apology. Mafart and Prieur will be taken by the French authorities from Wallis Island to Hao, a French military base in the Pacific where they are ordered to remain for the next three years. Although the French are presenting this as a normal posting, special restrictions will be placed on the two officers. Mr McLay’s view page 10