Dominique Prieur

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Dominique Prieur is a French military officer best known for her part in the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.

She was part of a team that travelled to New Zealand and bombed and sank the Rainbow Warrior, drowning photographer Fernando Pereira.

Prieur was a DGSE controller in the intelligence-gathering and evaluation wing, acting as Christine Cabon's controller. She was a specialist in European peace movements. Prieur entered New Zealand on a Swiss passport issued to her alias of Sophie Turenge.

After her arrest by New Zealand police she pleaded guilty, with Mafart, to charges of manslaughter of Fernando Pereira and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on 22 November 1985. Because of the UN ruling in the arbitration between New Zealand and France (July 1986) she was deported to the Island Hao (French Polynesia) to serve 3 years instead.

On May 6, 1988 she was returned to France because she was pregnant (her husband was allowed to join her on Hao). As with Mafart, she never returned to Hao. She has since been promoted to the rank of Commandant. Although a UN Arbitration panel found that France had breached its obligation to New Zealand several times by removing the agents from Hao, and failing to return them, it rejected an appeal by New Zealand to have Mafart and Prieur returned because the term they should have spent there had already lapsed.

Prieur published a book "Agent secrète" (Secret Agent) concerning her role in the bombing.