French spy apologises for fatal bombing of Greenpeace ship

Jean-Luc Kister was in team which planted mines on the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ in 1985

A French former secret service agent who placed explosives on board the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour killing a crew member apologises 30 years on. Video: Reuters

A French secret service frogman who took part in the operation to sink Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior 30 years ago has spoken publicly for the first time to apologise for his actions.

Diver Jean-Luc Kister, who attached a mine to the ship’s hull, says the guilt of the July 10th, 1985 bombing, which killed a photographer, still weighs heavily on his conscience.

“We are not assassins and we have a conscience,” the former agent told Mediapart, an investigative website. “I have the weight of an innocent man’s death on my conscience. It’s time, I believe, for me to express my profound regret and my apologies.”

He said he wanted to apologise to the family of the dead man, Fernando Pereira, " for what I call an accidental death but what they consider an assassination," and to the Greenpeace crew aboard the ship and the people of New Zealand where the Rainbow Warrior was sunk.

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Kister was one of two divers serving with the French intelligence service who attached limpet mines to the hull of the vessel moored in Auckland.

The Rainbow Warrior was heading for the Mururoa Atoll in the south Pacific, where France was planning a series of nuclear tests.

– (Guardian service)