A court in Greenland will decide on Monday whether to extend the four-month detention of anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, pending a decision on his extradition to Japan.
The hearing will be Watson’s sixth since he was arrested in July in Nuuk, the capital of the independent Danish state.
Prosecutor Mariam Khalil told AFP that she “asked for a four-week extension to the pre-trial detention period”.
Watson’s lawyer, Julie Stage, is still appealing for his release.
“I will ask that he be released immediately,” he said.
The activist, who turns 74 on Monday, was arrested on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant, accusing him of causing damage to a whaling ship in the Antarctic in 2010 and harming a whale.
Watson, who appeared on the reality TV series “Whale Wars”, co-founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and is known for tough tactics including dealing with whaling vessels at sea.
“It’s nonsense. Every time it’s the same, we wonder why they even called a hearing,” Lamya Essemlali, President of Sea Shepherd France, told AFP.
Watson was arrested on July 21 when his vessel, the John Paul DeJoria, stopped to refuel in Nuuk en route to “intercept” a new Japanese fishing factory vessel in the North Pacific, according to the CPWF.
– Decision pending –
Denmark’s Ministry of Justice, which has consulted with Greenland police and Denmark’s Prosecutor General on the case, told AFP at the weekend that a decision on the matter was imminent.
“The Danish Ministry of Justice is currently considering the extradition request… and expects to make a decision soon,” the statement said.
In late November, Watson’s lawyers appealed to Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard to block the extradition.
If Denmark rejects his extradition, “there will be no reason to arrest him anymore and (Watson) will be released very quickly,” Khalil told AFP in November.
If Denmark were to agree to Japan’s extradition request, Watson’s lawyers would file an appeal.
According to Stage, a decision must be made “within 14 days”.
Tokyo accuses Watson of injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt fishing operations during the collision between the Sea Shepherd and the Shonan Maru 2 in 2010.
Watson’s lawyers insist he is innocent and say they have video that shows a crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was thrown. The Nuuk court refused to watch the video.
In September, Watson’s lawyers contacted the UN Special Rapporteur on environmental protection, saying he could be “brutally treated” in Japanese prisons.
The defense team has argued that the crimes Japan accuses him of do not carry a prison sentence in Greenland, a point the prosecution disagrees with.
In a rare public comment on the case, Japan’s Foreign Minister, Takeshi Iwaya, said the extradition request was “a maritime law enforcement issue and not a whale issue”.
Watson hopes to be released to return to France, where he has lived since July 2023 and where his two young children are studying.
He applied for French citizenship in October.
Watson’s legal troubles have drawn support from members of the public and activists, including prominent British conservationist Jane Goodall, who has appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum.
A petition for his release has gathered 210,000 signatures, while another 220,000 have signed in support of his bid for French citizenship.
cbw/nzg/jll/bc
Source link
