-
Related
TVNZ has won the right to air the courtroom confessions of two French spies convicted of manslaughter in the Rainbow Warrior bombing.
The former French spies Dominque Prieur and Alain Mafart were convicted in 1985 of wilful damage of Greenpeace's protest ship and the manslaughter of photographer Fernando Pereira, who was on board at the time of the bombing.
The trial was covered by closed circuit cameras, but the visual record of the proceedings has remained under wraps as the pair fought for their guilty pleas never to be shown on television.
But after a protracted 18-month court battle, TVNZ finally secured the tapes.
"This decision is a significant victory for media freedom in this country and a victory for the rights of the public as well," says head of news and current affairs Bill Ralston.
Last year the High Court ruled that TVNZ could use the tapes but Prieur and Mafart challenged that ruling in the Court of Appeal, and failed.
"The Court of Appeal has said that the public interest outweighs any so-called expectation of privacy," says lawyer Willie Akel.
The pair may yet take their fight to the Supreme Court although
One News has now aired excerpts of the court hearing following the
successful ruling.