A Greenlandic court will rule on Wednesday whether environmental activist Paul Watson should be kept in custody pending the Danish government’s decision on Japan’s extradition request in a case related to his fight to protect whales.
Defenders of the 73-year-old American-Canadian activist expect him to remain in prison in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, unless Denmark makes a quick decision.
Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd and the oceans foundation that bears his name, was arrested on July 21 in the capital of the autonomous Danish territory while en route with his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, to intercept a new Japanese whaling factory ship.
Japan is seeking his extradition, having revived a request issued in 2012 via an Interpol red notice. It accuses him of being jointly responsible for damage and injuries on board a Japanese whaling ship two years earlier as part of a campaign led by Sea Shepherd.
Watson’s advisers say the Japanese claim is based on false claims, which they would like to demonstrate by presenting video clips of the events at the Nuuk court hearing.
“We expect the court to extend his detention because we were unable to present our evidence at the last hearing and we anticipate the same will happen this time,” one of his lawyers, Jonas Christoffersen, told AFP.
“The judge says it is not his role to study them because the case has been transferred to the police,” he regretted.
For its part, the Danish Ministry of Justice confirmed that “the examination of the official extradition request” is “in progress”, without giving a timetable for its decision.
“This is a procedure with several legal steps, and the Ministry of Justice is currently awaiting the legal assessment of the Greenlandic police and the Director of Public Prosecutions,” he told AFP.
Paul Watson is accused of injuring a Japanese sailor in the face by throwing a stink bomb – butyric acid – to hinder the work of whalers.
But Mr Watson’s counsel said the video footage proved that the crew member who Japanese authorities say was injured was not even present when the stink bomb was thrown on board.
-“Very unfair”-
A controversial figure in environmental circles, particularly because of his strong-arm methods, the activist obtained the signatures of 100,000 people on the petition demanding his release. On the political level, Paris asked Copenhagen not to extradite him.
From his cell in Nuuk Prison, a modern grey building set into the side of the rocks, Paul Watson shows his determination to continue his fight.
“If they think that this will stop our opposition! I have only changed ships, and my current ship is ‘Prison Nuuk’,” he said in an interview with AFP at the end of August.
The Japanese “want to use me as an example to show that their whaling is not to be touched.”
A loyal supporter of the activist, the president of Sea Shepherd France, Lamya Essemlali, sees this detention as an opportunity to shine the spotlight on Japanese intransigence.
“Obviously this is all very unfair and triggers a sense of injustice and anger from those who know the story,” she told AFP.
But “the silver lining is that there has never been more attention on Japanese whaling and… to denounce what Japan is doing in Antarctica, how Japan is violating the global moratorium on whaling,” she adds.
Watson and his foundation have two ships, ready to intervene if one of the whaling powers takes it over. Along with Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only countries that allow whaling.
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