Keystone
Denmark will not extradite whale advocate Paul Watson to Japan, and released him today in Greenland, where he had been detained since July under an international arrest warrant issued by Tokyo.
If he had been extradited to Japan, the 74-year-old Watson would have risked a sentence of up to 15 years in prison: he is accused of carrying out a “violent” protest against cetacean hunting which targeted a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean in 2010.
According to the prosecution, Watson had hit a member of the crew by throwing a stink canister, injuring him: however, his lawyers showed a video showing that there was no one on deck when the canister was thrown. However, the same lawyers have said that the battle is not over yet: they will appeal against the Japanese mandate “to make sure that Captain Paul can continue to travel the world peacefully”.
Watson – one of the founders of Greenpeace and subsequently, after being expelled, of the Sea Shepherd organization – was arrested on 21 July after arriving in Nuuk on the John Paul DeJoria ship for a stop during a mission aimed at intercepting the new whaling ship Japanese Kangei Maru in the North Pacific. Last month he requested “political asylum” from France – and French citizenship – in a letter sent to President Emmanuel Macron. The international community supported his release. France itself announced last month that it would launch “an appeal” for his release.
Today, finally, freedom, announced by a statement from the Greenland authorities: «The Greenland police today notified Paul Watson and his lawyer of the Ministry of Justice’s decision on the extradition case. Paul Watson was then released at 8.46am local time (10.46am GMT).”
Upon his release, Watson told AFP that his story had “drawn attention to the illegality” of Japan’s whaling, which has long been a target of the environmental movement. «My arrest has drawn the international community’s attention to Japan’s continued illegal whaling operations. These five months have been an extension of the campaign against the activity of Japanese whaling ships.
The environmentalist, famous for his reckless disturbances organized by Sea Shepherd against fishing activities he considers illegal, has an almost legendary status among environmental defenders: his war against whaling ships became the subject of a famous series TV, «Whale wars».
