PARIS (AP) — Interpol said Tuesday it was removing a most-wanted designation for anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson, who is sought by Japan over an encounter with a whaling ship and who was jailed for several months last year in Greenland.
Watson, 74, is a former head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, whose high seas confrontations with whaling vessels have drawn support from celebrities and featured in the reality television series “Whale Wars.”
Japan wants his extradition over an encounter with a Japanese whaling research ship in 2001, when he was accused of obstructing the crew’s official duties by ordering the captain of his ship to throw explosives at the whaling ship.
Starting in 2012, Watson had been subject to a “red notice” of Interpol, the Lyon, France-based international police body.
The Canadian-American activist was arrested and jailed on the Japanese warrant last year in Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, but released after five months.
Denmark does not have an extradition treaty with Japan, where Watson's foundation says he could have faced a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, and the Danish government declined to extradite him to Japan.
At the time of his release, the Danish Justice Ministry said it had not received adequate guarantees from Japanese authorities that the time Watson had already served in custody would be counted against any sentence he would receive in Japan.
In a statement, Interpol said the decision to remove Watson from the “red notice” list did not reflect any judgment on the merits of the case in Japan, but that it did take into account Denmark's refusal to extradite him.
“This is not a judgement on the merits of the case, or the events that occurred in 2010,” the Interpol statement said.
The police agency said the decision was made by an independent body, the Commission for the Control of Interpol's File, which is tasked to ensure that the police body's processing of personal data adheres to its internal rules.
Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, hailed the “good news that this notice was finally cancelled," but she noted that Watson still could be arrested and sent to Japan for prosecution.
“It does not give Paul Watson his freedom of movements because the Japanese arrest warrant is sufficient for a country to order his arrest,″ she said.
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Keaten reported from Geneva.
Angela Charlton And Jamey Keaten, The Associated Press
