By SCOTT MacLEOD
A videotape at the centre of the latest Rainbow Warrior legal battle has been found - if it was ever missing - and is likely to remain locked up until 2045.
Last week Auckland lawyer Colin Amery lost a High Court battle to obtain footage of two French agents
admitting they bombed the Greenpeace vessel, killing photographer Fernando Pereira.
Court proceedings were complicated by the fact that no one seemed to know where the tape was.
Mr Amery said yesterday that he had just taken a phone call saying the 1985 tape of Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur had been found at the High Court.
But the court's criminal registrar, Graham Forgie, said the tape had never been lost.
"He [Mr Amery] asked me to confirm we had it, and we did," he said.
Mr Forgie said the tape would remain in archives as part of the court record. Evidence used in criminal proceedings could be easier to obtain once it was 60 years old.
Mr Amery felt the tape would be in a poor condition by then.
"The point is that unless some other person brings an action, it will sit there until it is 60 years old and its use will be minimal.
"Our own [court] action is now terminated."
Mr Amery had argued in court that the video was needed for possible use in a documentary, and showing the tape was an act of justice in the public interest.
For the terrorists, lawyer Keith Catran argued it was filmed for evidence in the original trial and was never meant to be broadcast.
Justice Randerson said in a written decision that showing the film would add nothing to information already available to the public.
Mr Amery has taken a personal interest in the bombing. In 1986 he was part of a group that tried to stop the saboteurs being sent to a French atoll to serve the remainder of their 10-year manslaughter sentences.
