A Greenland court will decide on Monday whether to further 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 his arrest in July in Nuuk, the capital of the Danish autonomous region.
Prosecutor Mariam Khalil told AFP that she has “requested an extension of the pre-trial detention period by four weeks”.
Watson’s lawyer Julie Stage is now calling for his release.
“I am going to ask for his immediate release,” she 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 Antarctica in 2010 and injuring a whaler.
Watson, who appeared in the reality TV series “Whale Wars,” founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and is known for his radical tactics, including confrontations with whale ships at sea.
“It’s absurd. Every time it’s the same, we wonder why they are organizing the hearing in the first place,” Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, told AFP.
Watson was arrested on July 21 when his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, docked to refuel in Nuuk en route to “intercept” a new Japanese whaling factory ship in the North Pacific, the CPWF said.
– Decision pending –
The Danish Justice Ministry, which has been consulting with Greenland’s police and the Danish attorney general on the case, told AFP last weekend that it was nearing a decision on the case.
“The Danish Ministry of Justice is currently processing the extradition request and expects to make a decision soon,” the ministry said in a statement.
In late November, Watson’s lawyers urged Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard to block the extradition.
If Denmark refuses his extradition, “there would no longer be any reason for detention and (Watson) would be released as soon as possible,” Khalil explained to AFP in November.
If Denmark were to agree to Japan’s extradition request, Watson’s lawyers would appeal.
According to Stage, the decision must be made “within 14 days”.
Tokyo accuses Watson of wounding a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt whalers’ operations during a Sea Shepherd collision with the Shonan Maru 2 ship in 2010.
Watson’s lawyers maintain his innocence and say they have video footage showing the crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was dropped. The court in Nuuk has refused to view the video.
In September, Watson’s lawyers contacted the UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders claiming he “could be subjected to inhumane treatment” in Japanese prisons.
The defense team has argued that the crime Japan accuses him of does not even carry a prison sentence in Greenland, a point on which the prosecution disagrees.
In a rare public comment on the case, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said the extradition request was “a matter of maritime law enforcement rather than a whaling issue.”
Watson hopes to be released to return to France, where he has lived since July 2023 and where his two young children go to school.
He applied for French citizenship in October.
Watson’s legal troubles have drawn support from citizens and activists, including prominent British conservationist Jane Goodall, who has urged French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum.
A petition for his release has collected 210,000 signatures, and some 220,000 have signed his application for French citizenship.
CBW/NZG/JLL/BC