The Fort Worth Press - Fifth Greenland hearing for anti-whaling activist Watson

USD -
AED 3.672945
AFN 68.452776
ALL 93.048382
AMD 390.177793
ANG 1.816976
AOA 912.000099
ARS 998.254804
AUD 1.545095
AWG 1.8
AZN 1.698032
BAM 1.853558
BBD 2.03554
BDT 120.47462
BGN 1.854815
BHD 0.376842
BIF 2977.069937
BMD 1
BND 1.347372
BOB 6.966716
BRL 5.8066
BSD 1.008198
BTN 85.007628
BWP 13.679442
BYN 3.299388
BYR 19600
BZD 2.031743
CAD 1.40115
CDF 2865.00001
CHF 0.886796
CLF 0.035848
CLP 989.153355
CNY 7.2386
CNH 7.250155
COP 4485.54
CRC 514.803442
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 104.500739
CZK 23.960302
DJF 179.528977
DKK 7.067495
DOP 60.720649
DZD 134.172669
EGP 49.290223
ERN 15
ETB 123.045036
EUR 0.94761
FJD 2.27535
FKP 0.788182
GBP 0.78774
GEL 2.73022
GGP 0.788182
GHS 16.275027
GIP 0.788182
GMD 71.000353
GNF 8626.906515
GTQ 7.732614
GYD 209.363849
HKD 7.782585
HNL 25.442281
HRK 7.13329
HTG 132.50221
HUF 386.996975
IDR 15903.429748
ILS 3.75444
IMP 0.788182
INR 84.41005
IQD 1320.093319
IRR 42092.497378
ISK 139.679665
JEP 0.788182
JMD 159.538871
JOD 0.709096
JPY 155.855499
KES 129.000177
KGS 86.2029
KHR 4082.940274
KMF 466.349913
KPW 900.000082
KRW 1405.409479
KWD 0.30779
KYD 0.833937
KZT 496.700918
LAK 22131.335237
LBP 89600.701953
LKR 294.541861
LRD 189.957415
LSL 18.103174
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.882485
MAD 10.020131
MDL 18.159255
MGA 4702.502532
MKD 58.284107
MMK 2097.999942
MNT 3397.999993
MOP 8.017648
MRU 40.117279
MUR 47.429998
MVR 15.450179
MWK 1747.434509
MXN 20.575145
MYR 4.487941
MZN 63.899993
NAD 18.103174
NGN 1684.120018
NIO 37.087736
NOK 11.14889
NPR 135.978578
NZD 1.705044
OMR 0.385012
PAB 1
PEN 3.819421
PGK 4.022654
PHP 58.845999
PKR 278.051027
PLN 4.117614
PYG 7864.722013
QAR 3.674102
RON 4.718904
RSD 110.930976
RUB 98.496748
RWF 1383.186748
SAR 3.757331
SBD 8.383555
SCR 13.631406
SDG 601.506863
SEK 10.988925
SGD 1.346361
SHP 0.788182
SLE 22.815025
SLL 20969.515392
SOS 575.878195
SRD 35.280301
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.756103
SYP 2512.529926
SZL 18.108875
THB 35.068502
TJS 10.662352
TMT 3.51
TND 3.147935
TOP 2.38999
TRY 34.34961
TTD 6.800372
TWD 32.596799
TZS 2655.000038
UAH 41.343768
UGX 3672.512403
UYU 42.486895
UZS 12811.433733
VES 44.996696
VND 25396.829083
VUV 118.722046
WST 2.800822
XAF 621.928199
XAG 0.033254
XAU 0.000391
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.753908
XOF 621.928199
XPF 113.14122
YER 249.774976
ZAR 18.26826
ZMK 9001.200197
ZMW 27.374927
ZWL 321.999592
  • CMSC

    0.0700

    24.61

    +0.28%

  • RBGPF

    59.2500

    59.25

    +100%

  • CMSD

    -0.0200

    24.73

    -0.08%

  • RELX

    -0.4700

    46.12

    -1.02%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0400

    7.07

    -0.57%

  • VOD

    0.2800

    8.75

    +3.2%

  • NGG

    -0.7800

    62.12

    -1.26%

  • GSK

    -0.4100

    35.11

    -1.17%

  • SCS

    -0.3000

    13.37

    -2.24%

  • BCC

    1.4200

    142.55

    +1%

  • RIO

    -0.5800

    60.62

    -0.96%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.24

    +0.15%

  • AZN

    0.1000

    65.29

    +0.15%

  • BTI

    0.1800

    35.42

    +0.51%

  • BCE

    -0.4800

    27.21

    -1.76%

  • BP

    0.4100

    28.57

    +1.44%

Fifth Greenland hearing for anti-whaling activist Watson
Fifth Greenland hearing for anti-whaling activist Watson / Photo: © AFP

Fifth Greenland hearing for anti-whaling activist Watson

A Greenland court will decide Wednesday whether to further extend US-Canadian anti-whaling activist Paul Watson's time in custody pending a decision on his extradition to Japan, where he is wanted over an altercation with whalers.

Text size:

"The public prosecutor has requested an extension of the custody period," the prosecutor in charge of the case, Mariam Khalil, told AFP in an email.

Wednesday's hearing will be Watson's fifth since his arrest in July in Nuuk, capital of the Danish autonomous territory.

The 73-year-old activist was detained on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship in the Antarctic in 2010 and injuring a whaler.

Watson, who featured in the reality TV series "Whale Wars", founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and is known for radical tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

He was arrested on July 21 when his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, docked to refuel in Nuuk on its way to "intercept" a new Japanese whaling factory vessel in the North Pacific, according to the CPWF.

Watson's lawyers said they expected the court to keep him in custody.

"We don't expect the Greenland court to change direction," said one of Watson's lawyers, Julie Stage.

She and the defence team have appealed the Nuuk court's previous rulings to Denmark's supreme court.

"The more time that passes, the greater the sense of injustice," said Lamya Essemlali, the head of Sea Shepherd France, who has travelled to Nuuk for each of Watson's hearings.

"In 10 days, it will be four months since he was jailed, which corresponds to the maximum sentence he would have been handed if he had been convicted," she said.

- Danish decision pending -

The Danish justice ministry has not said when it will announce its decision on the extradition request.

It recently received two reports it had been waiting for -- from the Greenland police and the Danish prosecutor general -- before making a decision.

"The ministry of justice is reviewing the extradition request and the two statements, and the ministry will, on that basis, make a decision in the case," it said in a statement to AFP.

If Denmark refuses his extradition, "there would no longer be any reason for detention and (Paul Watson) would be released as soon as possible after this decision was brought to the attention of the Greenland police," Khalil, the prosecutor in charge of the case, told AFP.

If Denmark were to agree to Japan's extradition request, Watson's lawyers would lodge an appeal.

Tokyo accuses Watson of injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers' activities during a Sea Shepherd clash with the Shonan Maru 2 vessel on February 11, 2010.

Watson's lawyers insist he is innocent and say they have video footage proving the crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was thrown. The Nuuk court has refused to view the video.

In September, Watson's lawyers contacted the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, claiming that he could be "subjected to inhumane treatment" in Japanese prisons.

The defence team has argued that the crime of which Japan accuses him does not even carry a jail sentence in Greenland, a point on which the prosecution disagrees.

In a rare public comment on the case, Japan's Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya recently said the extradition request was "an issue of law enforcement at sea rather than a whaling issue".

Watson hopes to be freed to return to France, where he had been living since July 2023 and where his two young children go to school.

He requested French citizenship last month.

Watson's legal woes have attracted support from members of the public and activists, including prominent British conservationist Jane Goodall, who has urged French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum.

Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only three countries that still allow commercial whaling.

K.Ibarra--TFWP