Japan 'Regrets' Release Of Anti-whaling Activist Watson

Japan's government voiced dismay on Wednesday over the release of anti-whaling activist Paul Watson after Danish authorities refused Tokyo's extradition request.

The Sea Shepherd founder was arrested in Greenland in July on a Japanese warrant for damages caused during the group's high-seas battles to stop its "scientific" whale hunts in the 2010s.

"It is regrettable that the Denmark government did not accept Japan's request of passing him over and (the government) has conveyed this to the Danish side," said top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi.

"The suspect Paul Watson is wanted internationally as an accomplice of the February 2010 incident where activists of anti-whaling organisation Sea Shepherd injured members of Japanese whalers and damaged properties after an arrest warrant was issued," Hayashi said.

"The Japanese government will continue to deal with it appropriately based on law and evidence," he told reporters at a regular briefing.

Authorities in Greenland -- a Danish autonomous territory -- released the 74-year-old Canadian-American activist on Tuesday after Copenhagen turned down Tokyo's request to bring him to Japan.

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 in confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

In the 2000s and 2010s activists played a rough high-seas game of cat and mouse with Japanese ships as they sought to slaughter hundreds of whales every year for "scientific purposes".

Japan eventually halted its hunts in the Antarctic and North Pacific and since 2019 has only caught whales in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.

In May, Japan launched a new "mother ship", the Kangei Maru, to butcher the 200 marine mammals that its fleet plans to catch this year and store their meat.

The CPWF says that its vessel the John Paul DeJoria was on its way to intercept the Kangei Maru when Watson was arrested.

Activists believe that in building the new ship, Japan intends to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean, but the company operating the vessel has denied this.

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

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.

"My arrest has focused international attention on Japan's continuing illegal whaling operations and their intent to go back to the Southern Ocean... So, in fact, these five months have been an extension of the campaign," Watson told AFP on Tuesday after his release.

Jean Tamalet, one of his lawyers, told AFP that "the fight is not over."

"We will now have to challenge the red notice and the Japanese arrest warrant, to ensure that Captain Paul Watson can once again travel the world in complete peace of mind, and never experience a similar episode again," Tamalet said.

Japanese government has been tight-lipped throughout Watson's incarceration.

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