Latest news with #Kister
NZ Herald
3 days ago
- NZ Herald
Why French spies' getaway nuclear sub plan collapsed – Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History
New Zealand police caught up with the crew at Australia's Norfolk Island but had to let them go for lack of evidence. The crew then disappeared and were picked up by a French nuclear submarine, the Ruby, and whisked away back to France – or so the popular legend goes. In fact, the Ruby evacuation never happened because of political game-playing in the higher levels of French bureaucracy, according to the man who planted the bombs on the Rainbow Warrior, Jean Luc Kister. The former DGSE (Directorate-General for External Security) combat diver, who spoke to the podcast at length about the details and planning of the operation, said the nuclear sub could have been a getaway option for the spies. The Ruby was in the Pacific at the time and the divers were used to working with submarines, he said. The Ruby could have waited in international waters about 20km offshore and sent a Zodiac dinghy to collect the crew from a beach. But the plan collapsed because senior DGSE staff didn't want the Navy to know anything about their secret mission in New Zealand and the crew had to use a boat instead. 'They say, 'No, we don't want to involve the Navy in that'. And so it was abandoned.' French agents brought bombs into New Zealand on the yacht Ouvea. Photo / Maurice Whitham Kister explodes another longstanding myth about the Rainbow Warrior operation – a mysterious secret agent called Francois Verlet, who allegedly visited the Rainbow Warrior posing as a tourist on the evening of July 10, asked questions of the crew and then flew out to Tahiti. After the bombing, everyone assumed he was a DGSE agent doing last-minute reconnaissance. New Zealand authorities dismissed his vehement denials as lies – perhaps not surprisingly, as by this stage they had several captured French spies spinning similar cover stories – and Verlet even appears in a declassified SIS document as the mission co-ordinator. But Kister said he had never heard of Verlet and he knew everyone involved in the mission. 'This guy, he was just there – and he was French, unfortunately.' The podcast also examines the role the SIS played in the police investigation, including an 'embedded' officer Jamie Mercer (not his real name) who earned an international reputation for turning spies to the West. Mercer was a close colleague of John Daniell's stepfather 'Jim' and Daniell still has a photo of Mercer teaching him to shoot a slug gun at the age of 10 in Mercer's back yard. 'I remember saying to him, 'Are we allowed to be shooting guns here? Like, what about the police?' 'And he said, 'Oh, I work with the police quite a lot, I think it'll be okay.'' Former SIS officer "Jamie Mercer" teaches a 10-year-old John Daniell to fire a slug gun in his Christchurch back yard. Photo / Bird of Paradise Productions Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History is a six-episode true crime series. Follow the series on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released on Thursdays. The series is hosted and produced by John Daniell and Noelle McCarthy of Bird of Paradise Productions in co-production with the New Zealand Herald. Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History is supported by New Zealand on Air.
NZ Herald
09-07-2025
- Politics
- NZ Herald
French diver who planted bombs reveals why – Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History
The revelations have emerged in Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History, a new podcast by the Herald and Bird of Paradise Productions to mark the 40th anniversary of the fatal attack, which killed Greenpeace Portuguese photographer Fernando Pereira and set off a storm of international controversy. Former DGSE (Directorate-General for External Security) combat diver Jean-Luc Kister, who planted the bombs on the Rainbow Warrior, told the podcast the preparations were rushed because the decision was made only in March. 'We had no opportunity to test the effect of the bombs on a real boat, and because, in fact, this created a big hole, the sinking was very rapid,' the military veteran told producer John Daniell in his home in Metz in northern France. The series gives new insight into the last-minute nature of the operation, complicated by in-fighting at the highest levels of the French state. Kister maintains he and his team were betrayed by their political masters. 'Certainly at the highest level, they wanted to send a message to Greenpeace.' French agent Jean-Luc Kister. Photo / TVNZ French officials had been confident the bombing, codenamed Operation Satanique, would succeed because in 1980 the DGSE had successfully attacked the flagship of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan Navy, the cruiser Dat Assawari, while it was having a refit in the Italian port of Genoa. Two divers blew up the propeller shaft, damaging the ship so badly it couldn't put to sea for the next three years. There were no casualties that time and for decades afterwards most people assumed the Americans or Israelis were responsible. Kister told Daniell that the DGSE combat dive team used to work closely with a little-known British secret service unit called the Increment, which included specialist divers from the Special Boat Service (SBS) who were trained to work on secret operations for MI6, Britain's external spy agency. In episode 1 of the podcast, Shadow Warriors, Kister describes the Rainbow Warrior operation in detail and shares a map he prepared showing how the team carried out the attack. The map (included in the graphic below) features an alternative getaway route for the divers if the bombing team's Zodiac dinghy was unable to pick them up. The first episode also reveals Daniell's personal link to the New Zealand SIS bugging operation at the motel where the police kept the captured French spies. Daniell's stepfather was part of that special ops team, which worked on a much smaller budget than the French – 'basically three or four blokes with a toolbox and a van'. Two of the team – nicknamed 'Concrete and Clay' by their SIS colleagues in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the 1980s TV show Sapphire and Steel – laid the bugs in the Unicorn Motel in Herne Bay. Actors David McCallum and Joanna Lumley in character on the set of science fiction series Sapphire And Steel, circa 1981. (Photo by TV Times via Getty Images) Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History is a six-episode true crime series. Follow the series on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released on Thursdays. The series is hosted and produced by John Daniell and Noelle McCarthy of Bird of Paradise Productions in co-production with the New Zealand Herald. Rainbow Warrior: A Forgotten History is supported by New Zealand on Air.
