Anti-whaling activist still in custody in Greenland

Paul Watson, a 73-year-old anti-whaling activist must remain in custody in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, until September 5.

Canadian-American Watson was arrested on July 21 on the strength of a 2012 Interpol arrest warrant and an extradition request from Japan following a confrontation with one of its whaling ships in the Antarctic two years earlier.

Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Foundation and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF), was arrested after he made a stopover in Nuuk to refuel his ship, the John Paul DeJoria. He was bound for the north-west Pacific where he planned to intercept the Japanese factory ship, the Kangai Maru.

Japan maintains that in 2010, he injured a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb while trying to interrupt the activities of another ship, the Shonan Maru.

Julie Stage, Watson’s lawyer, argued that Watson should be released because the extradition demand was based on “plainly wrong” facts.

Talking to the AFP news agency, Stage said that material from Whale Wars, a documentary featuring Watson, showed that the “injured” crew member was not even present when the stink bomb was released.

The lawyer also complained that her client had not been given a translator.

“We find this scandalous. It’s not normal, we didn’t understand anything,” Stage said.

Upholding the custody charge, Greenland’s Appeals Court emphasised that the hearing was not focusing on Watson’s guilt or the extradition issue.

This would be dealt with separately, the tribunal said, adding that Watson needed to remain in custody “to ensure his presence.”

The initial decision will come from the Greenland authorities, although as a Danish autonomous territory, Denmark’s Justice ministry would decide whether to proceed with the extradition.

Paul Watson and his collaborators say they have helped to save 5,000 of the whales which are ostensibly protected by international law that has halted whaling since the 1986 International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium.

Iceland, Norway and Japan have defied the moratorium while Japan lost an International Court of Justice case in 2014 for camouflaging its continued whaling as “scientific research.”