Over the weekend a group of detectives are going to have a drink or two to mark the 25th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. A rookie cop who helped crack the case, talks for the first time to the media. Fairfax Media's Michael Field reports.

Just a month out of Police College, young Constable Nick Hall found himself sitting with the heavy hitters of Auckland Central's CIB.

In front of them were ``Alain and Sophie Turenge'', honeymooners from Switzerland.

One of the detectives picked up the morning newspaper and glanced at the horoscopes.

What is your sign?

``For both of them, two different horoscopes,'' Hall says.

``We read them out and they were so appropriate, so serious, I had to bite my bottom lip to stop myself laughing. ``There was 22-year-old Nick Hall, in the middle of what seemed like a James Bond movie.'' 

Hall had no license to kill, he had a French mother and he could speak French.

It had been a wet and cold evening on Wednesday, July 10, 1985, when agents of France's Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE) arrived in a camper van at the Outboard Boating Club (OBC) on Tamaki Drive. They unloaded their Zodiac and geared up in sophisticated re-breathing diving gear, and with limpet mines, set out for Marsden Wharf in downtown Auckland.

Greenpeace's ship Rainbow Warrior was moored, ahead of sailing to Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia, to protest at nuclear weapons tests. It had no security. The DGSE planted their mines along the side.

Everybody got off when the first mine went off, but Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira, 33, went back to get his cameras. He never made it.

Operation Rainbow was set up with 66 detectives under the command of Central's CIB head, Detective Superintendent Allan Galbraith.

People at OBC had been on a burglar watch that night and after the news, leads quickly reached police. They knew of a camper van and hints of French involvement. 

The rental camper van turned up on Friday morning; the newly weds wanted a partial refund and receipt. They were taken to Central.

At the time Hall had only just washed his brand new uniform a couple of times. He had just started the beat in Newmarket. He had his first arrest; a burglar who had stolen liquor from the Carlton on Broadway.

A senior constable who was a family friend showed him a notice wanting police who could speak French.

Hill's mother was a Parisian and every summer holiday the family had gone to New Caledonia.

He was told to go home change into plain clothes and get to Central.

Galbraith, Morrie Whitham and hulking Terry Batchelor were interviewing the Turenges, who had given nothing away. 

When they were not being questioned, Hall was to sit with them without letting on that he was fluent in French.

The couple were DGSE operatives Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur.

Late into the night Hall was alone with them when he was given a coffee. Mafart looked at it closely.

Hall asked him if he wanted one. Two coffees, with sugar sachets, were bought in, without a spoon.

``I picked up a pen,'' Hall says, ``to stir it cop fashion.'' 

Recognising the distaste from the two, he went to a bay window shelf to see if there was a spoon. 

In a box he found a butter knife. He put it back. He hadn't realised that in the night the window was a mirror; Mafart had seen the knife.

Hall turned round and told them there was no spoon so sat down and opened a newspaper, pretending to read. 

``I was starting to relax into my role, I didn't know much about policing, what they teach you at college doesn't really prepare you for this. I was just trying to stay cool,'' he said.

``All of a sudden I was aware of a shadow coming across.

``Mafart had just very quietly and very quickly reached over and pulled the butter knife out.'' 

Hall prepared to launch himself at Mafart.

``He just looked down to me and said, in English, he let on he could speak English, it was alright,'' he said.

Hall mused that he even noticed one of the cupboards in the room was ajar, revealing a police baton.

``He had the knife and he used it to stir the coffee and then I took it from him, smiled, and put it in my pocket That broke the ice.'' 

An hour later Galbraith's ploy paid off.

``Prieur says to Mafart in French, je me demande comment ils vont payer Berthelo.... I wonder how they are going to pay Berthelo'?'' 

Hall had no idea who Berthelo was.

``I sat on it but knew it was very important.'' 

A couple of hours before dawn Hall told Batchelor.

``He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and this was in the wee small hours and took me downstairs into Galbraiths' office.'' 

Galbraith was asleep in a cot on the floor. 

Batchelor woke him and got Hall to repeat what he heard.

Galbraith gave a wry smile, said ``keep at it, keep at it'', and went back to sleep.

Jean-Michel Berthelo was a French Navy combat diver, who with Roland Verge and Gerald Andries had reached New Zealand aboard a chartered yacht, Ouvea, skippered by Xavier Maniguet.

They had arrived at Paregarenga in the far north and transferred explosives and dive equipment to the camper van.

Prieur's over-heard question had linked it all together.

The sun came up and Prieur was taken to the toilet by Detective Glenda Hughes. Hall stayed.

``Mafart starts pacing, and he says to me in English, 'mistakes', I am just sitting there, he was muttering to himself, 'mistakes'. I was dumbfounded. He was basically coughing to me.'' 

The two knew they were in trouble.

``She was distressed, very emotional, crying and she was putting on that she couldn't understand what was going on. I think they were both very worried.'' 

Detective Inspector Whitham, who ran the homicide side of the investigation, is proud of the investigation.

"We ran that exactly off the Detective Manual," he says.

"Hall was a young cop who happened to speak French."

Whitham says that the couple did not admit their role as such, the information was important.

"She was quite down, he was suggesting 'remember the mountain' that type of thing, 'just stay strong, we'll be okay, they'll get us out' and indicating there was some one else who had greater authority of the thing than we did," Whitham said.

It was not an obvious trick to have Hall there, he said, because the DGSE had not realised there were a lot of French speaking people in New Zealand.

He believed the French dropped their guard because Hall was such an obvious rookie.

Ouvea stopped at Norfolk Island where Australian authorities held it.

Hall joined the small team flown by RNZAF Andover to the island to do the same role with the four men taken off it.

``But they were much more disciplined..., soldiers, I didn't talk to them much. They were eyeing me up.'' 

Hall got to test his new fingerprinting skills.

``Roland Verge, as I was rolling out his prints, was talking to me in French, very softly, and I looked at him and said 'I don't know what you are talking about mate' in my best kiwi.'' 

One of the police technicians swabbed the boat for explosive residue. 

``I remember the little guy, silver haired, big black heavy rimmed glasses, and he took swabs and got a positive right there and then from underneath the floorboards.'' 

They knew they had the divers but without warrants to arrest, they could only be kidnapped by New Zealand, or left to sail on.

They did and sometime later the French nuclear submarine Rubis surfaced somewhere near New Caledonia and took the four off the yacht. Ouvea was sunk.

Some months later a man walked into the Noumea Yacht Charter and handed over a bag of money: ``to pay for Ouvea'' was all that was said.

He was despatched to Noumea where he had his 23rd birthday. 

``I was just thinking and I was trying to tell mum and dad what's going on without saying too much. They were just thrilled for me, such an extraordinary start for my career.''

Looking for Ouvea and making inquires, Hall says the French secret service had started to influence the investigation.

They would speak to officials who were holding things back.

Then it was off to Europe.

``At Heathrow we were met by Special Branch, they got our bags and whipped us away; I tell you, I was living the James Bond movie, right in the middle.'' 

At Scotland Yard a top terrorist investigator spoke with them.

In Paris they were put in a hotel across the road from the police station, and given a liaison man who looked like Professor Tournesol out of Tintin.

``Rather than black hair, he was red haired with brilliant blue eyes.'' 

Later he was replaced with another man as the DGSE cover began to fall apart.

``He was a hard looking, nasty looking guy, reasonably pleasant but it was forced and we knew he was DGSE.''

In Paris they caught up with Maniguet.

They were not allowed to interrogate him alone nor in English. Everything had to be taken down on a typewriter as it was said.

Maniguet spoke perfect English. 

``He was very very clever, he was a doctor of diving medicine, he was a commodore in the navy.'' 

It was just that he had no convincing explanation as to why he had teamed up with three other men and made illegal landfall in New Zealand.

The French press were aggressive in their investigation of the Rainbow Warrior.

Hall would have to translate for the others.

``We read in the paper that the Ouvea was scuttled and that a French submarine had a rendezvous with them.'' 

Early in the investigation they had gone to the Paris police station midmorning to meet French detectives.

There were a couple of bottles of Johnnie Walker.

``I am looking at it, and one of their young Ds starts pouring two finger nips, and he is explaining to me every one stands and no one leaves until all the bottles have gone.'' 

They headed off to lunch later a bit wobbly, but having made contacts with their opposite numbers. They lived three and a half months in a Paris hotel.

``Three square meals a day, and I put on 10 kilos, I think we all put on 10 kilos. We ate well, we drank well.'' 

He met his mother's family.

``They were all embarrassed over the Rainbow Warrior. Most French people were, still are.'' 

Hall is happy things have changed between France and New Zealand.

``Its 25 years now, we've even got the New Zealand navy going to New Caledonia, even Navy demolitions there, working on old mines on the sea floor.``

The investigation 

In some ways, it was the attention to detail that had given the French away.

``I do know that we immediately looked at the French, and at France. The military guys knew it was a military act,'' Hall says. 

``We talk about a terrorist act, which has bugged my family, it was not a terrorist act, it was a military operation.'' 

With Mafart and Prieur the questioning had been long and detailed. 

``It was about tripping them up, showing them that their story didn't hold up.'' 

For the most part, the French preparations prevented discovery. But there was always going to be one thing.

``As soon as you pull on one thread, it all came undone.'' 

It was almost literally true.

Police in Auckland had found white bottles from diving re-breathers. A military operation would have seen green or olive drab bottles used to conceal the men in the water.

There was also so fabric which police speculated had covered the bottles while in operation.

In Paris they tried to find that type of mesh.

``We bought dozens of pairs of pantyhose and filled this bag up and checked it in with us, but we never found in Singapore. The old French had whipped it.'' 

By chance Hall had got the answer.

The team had gone to Galeries Lafayette, the big Paris department store.

``As I was going through the sports section, there hanging on this coat hanger was this big bloody body sock for diving and I realised we had found it.'' 

Used in a dry suit, they released that to cover the bottles, the military had cut off sections of arm or legs in the suits. 

The young Hall marvelled at the ``intel briefings'' attended by all the detectives who heard what had been discovered that day.

``So many guys got information and they don't' know what is important until they sit and listen; 'say that again, I've got this' and all of a sudden pieces fall together.'' 

As a rookie he was in awe of Galbraith and his top men.

``I was sitting among giants, these men were legends, and this was the pinnacle of their career. There is no other investigation that was like it.'' 

Hall says he counts himself lucky to have Galbraith, now retired, as a friend.

``He dominates. When he walked into the room, and everybody is quiet. He was quiet, quietly spoken he had a Scottish accent; he had a way of looking out from under his brow. He was just a wonderful man, I love him.``

Mafart and Prieur eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter were jailed and then, in a political deal, freed to serve their sentence on Hao Atoll in French Polynesia.

She got pregnant and they all went home.

While many were angry at that, Hall realised the background.

``I had a political understanding, I was aware of the role of policing.'' 

Hall says the team were proud that while they did not arrest all the offenders, they did identify them all.

``They committed a criminal act, but as soldiers they followed orders... I know Mafart said very early in the morning, when we were on our own, that no one should have died,'' Hall said. 

``It was odd, it was a cough. In English, no one should have died. There were mistakes. He said, someone will pay for these mistakes, no one should have died.'' 

Hall would like to meet Mafart. 

``Yeah, I would have loved to bump him to and said 'do you remember me', nicely. 

``I don't mind saying this now, 25 years later, Mafart was the kind of guy who made an impression on me, through that night, and I reckon he would be a nice bloke, he would be okay. He had the demeanour. I could probably knock on his door and say hello.'' 

For all the drama, Hall said none of the team lost site of what they were dealing with, the murder of Fernando Periera.

``It was a fabulous experience, it moulded me but we all knew, I knew I was part of a murder investigation.''

After...

When Operation Rainbow finished, young Nick Hall found he was no longer a detective.

``I wanted to go back into uniform, and I want to do a copper's work.'' 

He called it ``policing from the coal face, working from an I-car.'' 

He wasn't a book work man, he says.

``I had a taste for cop's life, running around in the dark, catching bad guys.'' 

In 1998 he took leave without pay and joined the staff of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania.

Riding in a prison van from the jail to the trial, they hit a pothole and Hall suffered severe spinal injuries. 

He had to be medivaced out.

Today, a senior constable, he is a firearms and defensive tactics instructor at the Auckland Firing Range, one of only two indoor police ranges in New Zealand.

Hall has still got a touch of the James Bond about him.

``It's a secret location in Penrose,'' he said.

Dominion Post

July 10, 2010

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