Denmark decided on Tuesday, December 17, not to extradite environmental activist Paul Watson to Japan, who will be released. The founder of Sea Shepherd said he was “happy” on France Inter. “I expected the worst,” he confided.
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“He is free, the Danish Ministry of Justice has just informed us that it has rejected the extradition request” Paul Watson’s lawyer, Julie Stage, told AFP, specifying that the founder of the NGO Sea Shepherd would be able to leave Nuuk prison in Greenland, where he had been in pre-trial detention for almost five months.
Read.”I’m leaving prison. He’s in good spirits.” The president of Sea Shepherd France gives news of Paul Watson
Lamya Essemlali, the president of Sea Shepherd France, based in Brittany, flew to Greenland where she went to welcome Paul Watson upon his release from prison, this Tuesday, December 17.
The environmental activist was unaware that this was the decision that was going to be made and was “prepared for the worst“while hoping”the best“. “In the end it went well, it took a while but everything ended well“, he declared at the microphone of France Inter. Paul Watson was delighted with the fact that it had “allowed focus on Japan’s illegal whaling actions“.
He said he wanted to return to France.as soon as possible“, to go”chat with Interpol“before”continue to oppose whaling“.
The 74-year-old American-Canadian was arrested in Nuuk on July 21, 2024, after the relaunch of a request issued by Japan in 2012, via an Interpol red notice. He was then on his way with his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, to intercept a brand new Japanese whaling factory ship.
Japanese authorities accused him of being co-responsible for damage and injuries aboard a Japanese whaling ship in 2010 as part of a campaign led by Sea Shepherd.
The portrait of Paul Watson has hung for several months on the pediment of the town hall of Languédias, in Côtes-d’Armor.
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© Jérémy Dauphin
The arrest of Paul Watson in Greenland by the Danish police sparked a wave of indignation across the world, particularly in Brittany where he has many supporters. In certain towns, such as Languédias or Saint-Brieuc, in Côtes-d’Armor, residents mobilized in favor of Paul Watson. In a symbolic gesture, the Languédias municipal council voted on a motion calling for the release of the founder of Sea Shepherd, and his French naturalization. “I am moved”confided this Tuesday noon the mayor of the village, Jérémy Dauphin,“because Paul Watson is one of the greatest men who spent his life defending the oceans, and he could not be imprisoned.”
“If the ocean dies, we die”: the words of Captain Paul Watson, repeated during a gathering in Rennes, August 3, 2024.
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© C Rousseau /France Télévisions
Denmark based its refusal to extradite the environmental activist on “the total duration of the detention of Paul Franklin Watson following his arrest on July 21, 2024 and until a possible extradition order can be executed, and on (the) fact that the acts for which extradition is requested date back more than 14 years, as well as the nature of the acts in general”according to the Danish decision consulted by AFP.
“Japan tried to silence a man whose only crime was to denounce the illegality of industrial massacre disguised as scientific research,” reacted another of his lawyers, Me François Zimeray.
Paul Watson “will be able to resume its action for respect for nature, which is also a fight for humanity and justice”he added. “We are proud to have led this legal and political fight alongside his loved ones.”
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