1.
GV Greenpeace vessel Sirius arriving at Cherbourg harbour. (2 SHOTS)
0.18

2.
GV Police on quayside, armed with guns.
0.24

3.
SV Members of Greenpeace crew dropping anchor.
0.33

4.
Gv French police firing tear gas grenades and hitting the Sirius. (4 SHOTS)
0.53

5.
SV Gas grenades landing on deck of Greenpeace ship.
1.07

6.
LV FROM French policeman firing TO grenade hitting ship and camera moving around deck during gunfire.
1.31

7.
LV Smoke rising from Greenpeace ship, and lifeboat smouldering.
1.41

8.
GV PAN FROM Tug TO police launch with police on board, and police broadcasting warning from launch. (3 SHOTS)
2.01

9.
SV PAN FROM Vanner TO police.
2.07

10.
CU PAN Members of Greenpeace team.
2.16

11.
SV PAN FROM Sign 'Don't ship death ashes', TO police carrying acetylene torch.
2.29

12.
CU Naval officer cutting through Sirius anchor chain as police and Sirius crew members look on. (3 SHOTS)
3.02

13.
SV Chain being hit with hammer, and braking PAN TO tug alongside, towing boat to harbour. (5 SHOTS)
3.41




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Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: French police seized the Greenpeace vessel Sirius as its crew of 15 anti-nuclear campaigners were attempting to dock in the northwestern port of Cherbourg on January 6. As she dropped anchor some 30 metres from the dock, the ship was greeted by a volley of explosive tear-gas grenades fired from the quayside by a contingent of more than 200 military police with dogs. One of the vessel's lifeboats was hit. Armed police in naval launches then boarded the Sirius and used acetylene torches and hammers to sever her anchor chain. The ship was seized and the crew arrested. The Sirius had come to Cherbourg to protest against the imminent arrival from Japan of a boat carrying radioactive nuclear waste. She had been banned from entering the commercial dock but a previous ban prohibiting her from entering French territorial waters within a 12-mile radius of Cherbourg had been lifted the previous day. She had been allowed to anchor some three miles from the town. As they were too far off-shore to carry out their non-violent campaign of information. the Greenpeace crew decided to sail into port. A Frenchman on board the Sirius said he could not believe his country's authorities would have acted in such a way towards a non-violent organisation. Eyewitnesses of the incident said it was "absolute chaos". A Greenpeace official, Mr. Peter Wilkinson, was in Cherbourg awaiting the arrival of the Sirius. He had been prevented by police from sailing with her from the French Channel port of Fecamp on January 3, after being arrested and detained there overnight on a charge of being drunk in a public place. He vigorously denies the charge.