We were betrayed says Rainbow Warrior agent

PARIS - A Frenchman who took part in sinking the Rainbow Warrior is demanding the Government declassify secret files to shed light on what he calls a mission darkened by betrayal.

Xavier Maniguet, a doctor and French Navy reservist, helped to smuggle into New Zealand the explosives, diving equipment and other gear used to sabotage the Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbour on July 10, 1985.

The material, stashed on the yacht Ouvea, was transferred ashore to secret service agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, later arrested and tried in New Zealand, who passed them on to a "third team" who clamped the weapons to the Warrior's hull.

Maniguet told Le Parisien his role in Operation Satanic was simply to provide cover - to play the part of a playboy who was chartering the Ouvea for a jaunt around the South Pacific.

"I thought I would be surrounded by professionals. Today, I'm ashamed to have been mixed up in an affair in which there were many useless people, agents with such a lack of professionalism and lots of Government spite."

He sympathised with Gerard Royal, the brother of Socialist Party presidential candidate Segolene Royal. Speaking after his younger brother leaked to the press that he had been a member of the third team, Royal said last week he was furious that people thought he was a "dumb agent who worked on a dumb operation".

"I fully understand him," said Maniguet. "We were grassed up, utterly and shamefully. In all Western democracies, politicians are supposed to protect their secret agents. That's why, today, I would like the file to be declassified to establish the responsibility of the people who handed up the names of the secret agents."

His remarks appeared to point to the finger at the French Defence Ministry, the Prime Minister's office and the presidential palace.

Maniguet said Royal did indeed pilot the Zodiac inflatable that took two divers to a dropoff spot and picked them up after they had attached the mines to the Rainbow Warrior. Royal's brother, Antoine, had said Gerard had been one of the divers.

"He was a young officer for whom I have a lot of regard," said Maniguet. "He was one of the few who was able to escape the New Zealand police.

"He was a secret agent who was only carrying out a mission ordered by the French Government and I respect him."

As for the team on the Ouvea, it was only when the yacht arrived in Norfolk Island that they learned the mission had gone catastrophically wrong.

"I told the three secret agents who were with me, 'Go, right now!' But they were exhausted. They preferred to stay and were arrested that night."

Maniguet himself was picked up in Sydney by police as he left a cinema.

"They questioned me all night. I played the role of being a mere tourist. They had no evidence against me and let me go."