Dominique Prieur

Dominique Prieur (born 1949) is a French military officer who was convicted of manslaughter over her part in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior. Prieur was also the first woman French secret agent.

Prieur joined the military in 1974 and was recruited as a secret agent in August 1977.

Prieur worked in the intelligence-gathering and evaluation wing of the French Secret Service, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). She was an expert in European peace organisations and was the controller for Christine Cabon. Cabon was posted to Auckland in April 1985, where she infiltrated the Greenpeace office and gathered information for Prieur and her fellow agent Alain Mafart. In July 1985, Prieur and Marfart entered New Zealand from Corsica on Swiss passports issued to their aliases Sophie and Alain Turenge, a newlywed couple on honeymoon. Their instructions were to sink the Rainbow Warrior as the French government suspected that it would be used to protest the upcoming nuclear tests at Mururoa atoll in the South Pacific. Prieur's responsibilities were the logistics of the operation, and the evacuation of the agents from the country after the bombing had taken place.

Prieur and Marfart delivered limpet mines to two frogmen to plant on the ship's hull on the night of 10 July 1985. The explosions sank the vessel and killed photographer Fernando Pereira.

They were arrested by New Zealand police within 30 hours of the bombing, and originally charged with Pereira's murder. Prieur was transferred to Christchurch Women's Prison and held there awaiting trial. Prieur pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and wilful damage in the Auckland District Court, and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on 22 November 1985. After serious political pressure from France and her allies, the New Zealand government agreed to a United Nations arbitration ruling in July 1986 that saw the pair transferred to French custody on the island of Hao in French Polynesia.

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