Bit players in Rainbow Warrior drama

Three days after it berthed in Auckland, the Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French government agents who attached two bombs to its hull. Herald file picture

One was a meet-and-greet girl for a rental van company whose stalling tactics prevented two French agents fleeing the country. Another was a forestry worker whose innovative way of writing down a number plate gave police indelible, invaluable evidence. Another (who would later lead his country) was a security guard who helped prove that Alain Mafart had scouted out the Rainbow Warrior.

In all, there were more than 200 of them - ordinary New Zealanders whose observations and actions helped to subvert the French secret service in the aftermath of its extraordinary mission to New Zealand in July 1985, and led to the convictions of Mafart and Dominique Prieur.

"The French underestimated the New Zealand public and police in that they did not appreciate the co-operation between the population and the police was so close in 1985 [and so] they did things that made their presence unforgettable," says former Detective Inspector Maurice Whitham, second in charge of the police investigation.

"The [bombers] were very cavalier in some of their approaches. But in some aspects it was very good - the planting of the devices on the ship was highly professional and designed to do maximum damage to the Rainbow Warrior."

One of the agents, Xavier Maniguet, admitted with a smirk in a television interview this week that the agents had not realised so many people would take notice of them and inform police.

But for many of the witnesses, their part was nothing to laugh about - they paid a personal toll.

A Northland man says his role has left him afraid of reprisal.

The man, who agreed to be interviewed only if he remained anonymous, was one of two forestry workers felling trees in the Topuni forest, north of Wellsford, on a drizzly afternoon when they saw a campervan driven by Mafart and Prieur swing off the road, circle around, then head off again.

Soon afterwards, a station wagon driven by another agent, Roland Verge, pulled up in the same area. It was supposed to be a rendezvous, with the campervan picking up equipment for the bombing, brought into New Zealand by Verge and the others on board the yacht Ouvea.

The forestry workers had no way of knowing this at the time. But because petty crime in the area made them suspicious of unusual cars, they took notice and even chatted with the Frenchmen.

The agents asked whether the men had seen a campervan. Told it had been and gone, they sped off, further raising the men's suspicions.

"Because they were acting a bit funny, I took note and wrote down the number plate of the vehicle in the dust of our truck," says the man.

Fortunately he rarely washed the truck so, several days after the bombing when he called the police to report what he had seen, detectives were able to connect the campervan with the Ouvea crew.

"In hindsight, we felt somewhat proud about it because we were protecting New Zealand, but at the time we just thought we were going about our daily business," says the man.

He was told he was possibly at risk because of what he had seen. "The cops told me I might be marked," he says. "They had us protected for a while. It's still a bit of a worry to me - I don't really know why."

A source confirmed that there were about eight witnesses whose evidence was considered crucial - the forestry workers, a couple who watched the eventual rendezvous between the campervan and the Ouvea crew, people who saw and heard the agent who had planted the explosives come ashore, and others who watched Mafart and Prieur pick up the bomber.

There were fears that if those people were somehow unable to give evidence, the case against Mafart and Prieur would have been difficult to prove. And with the involvement of the French secret service confirmed, it was feared that one way or another, the witnesses might well be silenced.

Whitham confirms "the concern about retribution, or the possibility of further action to free the Turenge couple [Mafart and Prieur's alias], extended to official circles".

"Prieur was moved to a specially prepared security facility at Ardmore, while Mafart was moved under armed escort from Mt Eden to Paremoremo," he says. The Government even built a special vehicle dubbed the "Turenge mobile" especially to transport them to court.

"We also received a number of reports about witnesses in the Far North being approached and interviewed by a Frenchman," says Whitham. "There may have been an innocent explanation, however we were unable to establish this and the media organisations we spoke to denied any such action."

Another witness was not as concerned about security issues as much as she was about the media spotlight.

Rebecca Hayter had been working at rental campervan firm Newmans for just a few months, a break after university as she contemplated taking up a career in journalism. On July 8, two days before the bombing, the "Turenges" had come into Newmans because they had broken the windscreen of their vehicle.

Hayter dealt with them, and arranged a replacement van. She recalls Prieur being quite stand-offish, and Mafart as friendly.

"The only thing that was a tiny bit odd was his insistence on staying with the van," Hayter says. When she offered to help transfer their gear into the new van, Mafart was polite but firm: no thanks.

On July 11, Hayter returned from the movies to an answerphone message to call work urgently. It was late, but a Newmans staff member was still there, and Hayter was referred to the police. They were asking questions about the Turenges.

Police gave Hayter no indication of the seriousness of what she had inadvertently become involved in. She certainly had not made any connection between the Turenges and the sinking of the Warrior.

"I probably thought it was a minor traffic violation."

The next morning, she went into work just after 8am, curious about the French couple.

"I nearly blew it," she says. "I walked in and said [to another staff member] 'do you remember those people the Turenges?' She said, 'That's them there'."

Mafart and Prieur had come in to drop the campervan off, having decided to skip the country early, moving their flight forward to that morning, July 12.

What happened next, in part thanks to Hayter, handed detectives their first big break.

Hayter and other staff, having decided to call the police, had to concoct bogus reasons to delay the Turenges until officers arrived. They made up reasons about why their refund was going to take a while to process.

Quite why Mafart and Prieur felt the need to put themselves at risk by hanging around to collect about $130 is unknown. Maybe the agents were on recoverable Government expenses - police also discovered a receipt belonging to the Ouvea crew for coffee at the Dome Valley tearooms had been doctored from $8.50 to $58.50.

For whatever reason, the stalling tactics worked for a while but as time ticked on, the Turenges became edgy. At one point, Hayter remembers taking a staff member aside behind a closed door to explain what was going on. "I looked up and [Mafart] was looking at me through [glass in the door]. He was looking at me very intensely. By then, it was taking a long time. I think they were getting a bit anxious but they didn't expect we were up to anything."

Finally, the police arrived and the Turenges were taken to the station. Hayter and her colleagues' white lies had been worth it. "If [Mafart and Prieur] had gone straight to the airport, they would have left the country," says Hayter.

As well as having a hand in capturing Mafart and Prieur, the Newmans company also helped police to confirm the links between the couple and the Ouvea crew.

When police searched the Ouvea during a brief detention on Norfolk Island, they discovered evidence of the crew's involvement in the plot. As well as traces of explosives, detectives found a marked map given to Mafart and Prieur by Newmans staff when they picked up their campervan. The couple had denied meeting the Ouvea crew, claiming the campervan witnessed by the forestry workers was not theirs, but the map proved otherwise.

Soon the 21-year-old Hayter was overwhelmed at her Newmans workplace, caught up in the intense international media and public interest in the case. Dealing with reporters put her off becoming one herself for several years.

Eventually, she did and is now the editor of Boating New Zealand magazine. In hindsight, she thinks the experience made her a better journalist, more conscious of how to deal with interview subjects.

Another witness who changed career tack after the bombing was security guard Sani Lakatani, later to become Premier of Niue. He was working for the then Auckland Harbour Board when a Frenchman approached him in the days before the Rainbow Warrior arrived, asking questions about it. When he told police about his encounter, he was shown photographs of about 40 people and picked out Mafart.

"I said, 'He came out on the wharf all right'," says Lakatani.

Lakatani was shocked by the bombing, but he was more personally affronted as a Niuean MP and Premier about French behaviour during the years France continued to test nuclear bombs in the Pacific.

Like most of the witnesses in the case, his involvement with the French was fleeting. With the guilty pleas of Mafart and Prieur, the witnesses were even saved from the attention that would have come if there had been a trial, a relief to people like the former forestry worker, who was dreading the day he would have to give evidence, fearing for his life. Some who had relationships with the saboteurs during their time in New Zealand had personal reasons for wanting their role kept quiet.

But the Rainbow Warrior episode is a part of their past they keep being reminded of because it is such a significant chapter of New Zealand's recent history.

Rebecca Hayter says she often reflects on how peculiar it is that there is this one hour in her life - the time she spent with the Turenges at Newmans - that keeps popping up. "But it's a good story sometimes at dinner parties."

- Additional reporting by John Andrews