Japan seeks arrest of anti-whaling leader

Tokyo - The Japanese Coast Guard has obtained an arrest warrant for a leader of an anti-whaling group for allegedly ordering his members to obstruct operations by Japan's whaling fleet, Japanese media reported Friday.

The Coast Guard is seeking the arrest of Paul Watson, founder and president of the US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, on suspicion of assault and obstruction of business, the Kyodo News agency reported.

Japanese authorities are to put Watson on the international wanted list through Interpol, Kyodo reported, citing unnamed sources.

Watson, a Canadian, is suspected of ordering Peter Bethune, a New Zealand national, to throw a chemical onto a Japanese whaling ship in the Antarctic Sea in February and commit other acts of obstruction, Kyodo said.

Bethune was the skipper of the Sea Shepherd's high-speed trimaran Ady Gil during the society's annual mission to disrupt the whaling season. The trimaran sank in January after colliding with the Shonan Maru Number 2, the Japanese whaling fleet's security ship.

The New Zealander then allegedly boarded the ship to make a citizen's arrest of the Japanese skipper for the attempted murder of the Ady Gil's crew members.

He was detained on board the Japanese vessel in mid-February and was handed over to the Japanese Coast Guard when the ship docked in Tokyo in March.

Bethune was the only one directly engaged in the acts but the Coast Guard decided to arrest Watson because Bethune had reportedly told investigators that he had acted on Watson's orders, Kyodo reported.

Watson told Kyodo Friday on the phone that the arrest warrant did not worry him.

"It is clearly a politically motivated arrest warrant," Watson was quoted by Kyodo as saying. "... It's not an investigation into an infraction. Japan is doing everything they can to stop us going down to the Southern Ocean next year."

Japanese prosecutors indicted Bethune earlier this month on five criminal counts in connection with obstructing Japanese whaling.

A worldwide ban on whaling was enacted in 1986, but Japan uses a loophole in that agreement to continue whaling under the premise of doing it for scientific research.

Its critics, however, have accused it of conducting its annual hunt for commercial purposes, and Sea Shepherd harasses its whaling fleet each year to try to disrupt its catch.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/321329,japan-seeks-arrest-of-anti-whaling-leader.html.