It’s been 21 years since Greenpeace's anti-nuclear protest boat was sunk by French secret agents in Auckland harbour.
According to fresh news reports Gerard Royal, who was an agent in the DGSE intelligence agency, has admitted to being the person who planted the bomb.
Gerard Royal is the brother of presidential hopeful Segolene Royal, and the claims of Gerard’s involvement in the bombing came from another of Gerard and Segolene’s brothers, Antoine Royal.
Antoine Royal told the French newspaper Le Parisien last week that his brother Gerard had told him he planted the bomb that sunk the Greenpeace ship to stop it from leading a protest voyage to France's nuclear test site in the Pacific.
Segolene Royal is the Socialist Party's front-running presidential candidate and could become France's first female president in next year's elections.
The bomber in the July 1985 incident was never caught, although two accomplices were jailed for killing photographer Fernando Pereira, one of 11 people on board the Rainbow Warrior.
Codenamed operation SATANIC, the attack saw mines planted on the sides of the ship which quickly sank it.
Case closed
A spokesman for Prime Minister Helen Clark told news media that New Zealand had accepted the case as closed in 1991 when it dropped a bid to extradite another agent involved in the country's first and only case of state-sponsored terrorism.
"Were New Zealand now to endeavour to reopen the case, it is likely the French government would consider we were acting contrary to earlier undertakings," Ms Clark told reporters today.
"The advice I have from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is that France was held to account for its actions at international law," she said.
Greenpeace campaign manager Cindy Baxter said she accepted that the case was closed.
"The best thing the New Zealand government can do is to keep pushing for international nuclear disarmament, which is what this issue's always been about," she said.
French agents Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur were jailed for 10 years each after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the case.
They were released after six months under a settlement deal in which France paid New Zealand $A9.36 million in compensation.
Sister “surprised” at fuss
French presidential hopeful Segolene Royal has said she was "a bit surprised" at the fuss being made over her brother Gerard's involvement in the sinking the Rainbow Warrior.
Ms Royal told a meeting of Socialist party activists: "I am a bit surprised at all this controversy springing up just after I declared my candidature. I don't know if it's a coincidence."
She added that if there was anything new to be said about the matter, the defence ministry should say it, and that she admired her brother Gerard, who was at one time a combat swimmer with the DGSE, as "a great soldier".
A specialist close to those involved - who asked not to be named today contradicted Antoine Royal's story by saying that Gerard Royal had merely piloted the dinghy which took two other men to plant the explosives.