Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson freed in Greenland after five months happymamay

Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson has been released from prison in Greenland where he spent five months in custody, after Denmark rejected a Japanese extradition request.

Police arrested Watson, 74, when his ship docked in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, last July.

Police acted on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant accusing him of causing damage to a Japanese whaling ship, obstructing work and injuring a crew member during a confrontation in Antarctic waters in February 2010.

Watson, a Canadian-American citizen who appeared on the reality TV show Whale Wars, has denied any wrongdoing.

Whaling and eating whale meat has been strongly criticized by conservation groups, but officials in Japan say it is part of the country’s culture and way of life.

The Danish Ministry of Justice confirmed that it would not comply with the Japanese extradition request, basing its decision on “the nature of the circumstances” as well as the fact that the incident dates back 14 years.

His lawyer, Julie Steg, told AFP news agency that he was now free.

Since Greenland is an autonomous region of Denmark, the decision to extradite him was made in Copenhagen. Although there is no extradition treaty between Japan and Denmark, the government in Tokyo has asked Denmark to extradite him.

Danish Justice Minister Peter Hommelgaard said it was “central importance” to ensure that the time Watson spent in detention in Greenland would be deducted from any potential prison sentence he might face later in Japan.

He added that the ministry concluded that “it cannot be assumed with necessary certainty that this is the case” after correspondence with Japanese authorities.

Watson’s ship, named M/Y John Paul DeJoria, was heading to the North Pacific with a crew of 26 volunteers on board, attempting to intercept a new Japanese whaling ship when it docked to refuel in Nuuk on 21 July.

At a pre-detention hearing, Watson told the court the case was about “revenge for a television program that has deeply embarrassed Japan in the eyes of the world.”

For years he has been a controversial figure known for his confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

The activist is a former president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which he left in 2022 to set up the Captain Paul Watson Foundation.

Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission and resumed commercial whaling in 2019, after a 30-year hiatus. However, it continued to hunt whales for what it said were research purposes.