Today in 1985, French secret agents—in an elaborate intelligence operation codenamed Satanique—bombed and sank the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, New Zealand, as it prepared to return to Mururoa Atoll to protest French underground nuclear testing there. 
France denied responsibility for the attack, which killed 35-year-old freelance photographer Fernando Pereira, and most of its agents (at least nine were involved) escaped. But New Zealand police detained two suspects, posing as Swiss honeymooners, and unraveled the plot.
After France's culpability was proven, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and Admiral Pierre Lacoste, Director of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, was fired. In 2005, it was confirmed President François Mitterand had personally approved Opération Satanique.
In 1986, France apologized to New Zealand for violating its sovereignty and paid it the equivalent of $6.5 million. New Zealand then released Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur—the two agents it arrested—into French custody, to remain detained at a base on Hao Atoll for 3 years.
However, in violation of the terms of its agreement with New Zealand, France allowed both Mafart and Prieur to return home in December 1987 and May 1988, respectively, where they were both freed and promoted. As a result, in 1990, France paid another $2 million to New Zealand.
In 1987, under international pressure, France paid Greenpeace $8.16 million in damages for the brazen attack and also paid compensation totaling 2.3 million francs to Pereira's wife, two young children, and parents. France did not cease nuclear testing at Mururoa until Jan. 1996.
In 2015, Jean-Luc Kister, one of the two divers working for the French intelligence service who attached two powerful limpet mines on the Rainbow Warrior, apologized in an interview for his role in the bombing, claiming Pereira's death was unintentional. theguardian.com/environment/20…
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