Rainbow bombers' guilty pleas finally reach screen

Dominique Prieur (left) and Alain Mafart

Courtroom footage of French agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur pleading guilty to manslaughter after the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior finally screened last night after TVNZ won its legal fight for court tapes.

In a unanimous judgment, the Court of Appeal said yesterday the 21-year-old footage was of such historical and public importance that it outweighed the privacy of the agents.

The court tape features former French agents Prieur and Mafart pleading guilty to the manslaughter of Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira in the 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombing.

TVNZ was granted access to the footage by the High Court in August last year, but the French agents appealed against the decision in the Supreme Court, which referred it to the Court of Appeal.

Justice Grant Hammond said the Rainbow Warrior case was of great historical importance.

"It is incontrovertible that this bombing was an extraordinary event in the history of New Zealand, and even internationally. "As time passes there will be new generations of New Zealanders who have not lived through the Rainbow Warrior affair and so will not have personal knowledge of it."

He said both Prieur and Mafart had effectively given up a claim to privacy by describing the hearing and their reactions in books, and "in effect courted publicity for their perception of the events at issue".

He said visual images had an impact that the written word did not.

"In this case, this is not just any defendant pleading guilty. Whatever may be said about other cases, this was an act of historically great significance."

TVNZ wanted to use a segment of the tape as part of its coverage of the 20th anniversary of the bombing last year.

The tape's fuzzy picture and sound was shown on One News last night. TVNZ head of news and current affairs Bill Ralston said the broadcaster continued its fight because it was in the public's interest.

Although TVNZ was not awarded costs, Mr Ralston said it was "still an important piece of New Zealand history and New Zealanders deserve to see it".

"What price do you put on freedom issues? I think it is important somebody actually stands up and fights. I have always looked at the release of the tapes as being a media freedom issue, in terms of any precedent it sets. The public have a right to see the tapes, even at this distance in time."

The agents' lawyer in both the manslaughter hearing and this decision, Gerard Curry, was in France yesterday, but his associate said they had no comment to make.

Mr Curry argued in the Court of Appeal that the footage could be screened repeatedly in any future stories. He said his clients now had settled civilian lives and repeated use of the images so long after the trial itself would be damaging.

Justice Hammond rejected Mr Curry's argument that screening the footage would disrupt the agents' privacy, saying passages in their books "do not portray humiliation in front of onlookers".

"If anything, there appears to have been vast relief and even a sense of 'victory' that the appellants 'would only be judged for manslaughter'," he said, quoting the books.

The successful attempt was the sixth time somebody had applied for access to the tape. The first attempt was a few weeks after the guilty plea, for a documentary at the Cannes Film Festival by the predecessor of TVNZ - the Broadcasting Corporation of NZ. BCNZ obtained the footage, but the agents received an interim injunction stopping its use.

Greenpeace campaign manager Cindy Baxter said the screening was a satisfying result.

"It's about time justice caught up with them. In the interests of transparency, it's really good to see this coming out. They've been running from the New Zealand justice system for 20 years so it is good to see a victory there."


THE BOMBERS

After being sentenced to 10 years in prison in November 1985, both had returned to France by May 1988. They had claimed medical grounds required cutting short a three-year term at Hao Atoll which the New Zealand Government agreed to in a repatriation agreement in 1986, in return for $13 million compensation, a formal apology and trade undertakings.