Dubai Telegraph - Greenland court extends detention of anti-whaling activist Watson

EUR -
AED 3.938479
AFN 73.284283
ALL 98.19234
AMD 417.267449
ANG 1.943348
AOA 978.447316
ARS 1071.53141
AUD 1.629089
AWG 1.930079
AZN 1.82711
BAM 1.955647
BBD 2.17713
BDT 128.849948
BGN 1.955747
BHD 0.406468
BIF 3183.551653
BMD 1.072266
BND 1.425189
BOB 7.467417
BRL 6.152562
BSD 1.078316
BTN 90.972903
BWP 14.300884
BYN 3.528725
BYR 21016.42052
BZD 2.17343
CAD 1.49386
CDF 3073.115756
CHF 0.939162
CLF 0.03726
CLP 1028.119797
CNY 7.698019
CNH 7.63378
COP 4640.937963
CRC 551.556973
CUC 1.072266
CUP 28.415058
CVE 110.256399
CZK 25.259812
DJF 192.015021
DKK 7.459869
DOP 64.934934
DZD 142.958848
EGP 52.835878
ERN 16.083995
ETB 133.503285
FJD 2.399951
FKP 0.820465
GBP 0.830088
GEL 2.916983
GGP 0.820465
GHS 17.683621
GIP 0.820465
GMD 76.671173
GNF 9295.27488
GTQ 8.33535
GYD 225.592402
HKD 8.336174
HNL 27.205878
HRK 7.386875
HTG 141.888931
HUF 407.236454
IDR 16786.168917
ILS 4.020796
IMP 0.820465
INR 90.481213
IQD 1412.489812
IRR 45134.375558
ISK 148.766647
JEP 0.820465
JMD 171.076654
JOD 0.760348
JPY 163.686863
KES 139.08915
KGS 92.433433
KHR 4378.658423
KMF 493.644665
KPW 965.039476
KRW 1499.246878
KWD 0.328832
KYD 0.89853
KZT 530.808592
LAK 23665.153893
LBP 96559.167469
LKR 315.465391
LRD 204.33406
LSL 18.869628
LTL 3.166124
LVL 0.648604
LYD 5.232592
MAD 10.648369
MDL 19.338491
MGA 4988.610841
MKD 61.610194
MMK 3482.679288
MNT 3643.561097
MOP 8.633826
MRU 42.957649
MUR 49.75717
MVR 16.566921
MWK 1869.754141
MXN 21.634265
MYR 4.699212
MZN 68.521819
NAD 18.869628
NGN 1788.626462
NIO 39.676905
NOK 11.794827
NPR 145.556645
NZD 1.797446
OMR 0.412628
PAB 1.078316
PEN 4.044584
PGK 4.328662
PHP 62.679371
PKR 299.424042
PLN 4.325898
PYG 8431.342275
QAR 3.931893
RON 4.977143
RSD 117.04113
RUB 104.99181
RWF 1478.084695
SAR 4.02742
SBD 8.943509
SCR 14.390377
SDG 644.972153
SEK 11.594849
SGD 1.4214
SHP 0.820465
SLE 24.501684
SLL 22484.885861
SOS 616.251927
SRD 37.497551
STD 22193.748611
SVC 9.435264
SYP 2694.101668
SZL 18.864528
THB 36.687634
TJS 11.462006
TMT 3.763655
TND 3.347839
TOP 2.511359
TRY 36.822021
TTD 7.327428
TWD 34.580984
TZS 2878.975413
UAH 44.514627
UGX 3946.692121
USD 1.072266
UYU 45.046486
UZS 13787.924411
VEF 3884341.194834
VES 47.874003
VND 27101.532073
VUV 127.301648
WST 3.003615
XAF 655.905833
XAG 0.031788
XAU 0.000394
XCD 2.897854
XDR 0.808437
XOF 655.905833
XPF 119.331742
YER 267.878982
ZAR 19.79817
ZMK 9651.687743
ZMW 29.35571
ZWL 345.269328
  • RBGPF

    61.4000

    61.4

    +100%

  • RELX

    0.3200

    47.98

    +0.67%

  • VOD

    -0.0100

    9.31

    -0.11%

  • NGG

    -0.3600

    63.94

    -0.56%

  • GSK

    -0.3700

    36.29

    -1.02%

  • CMSC

    0.1600

    24.84

    +0.64%

  • RYCEF

    0.0100

    7.15

    +0.14%

  • RIO

    -3.0400

    64.43

    -4.72%

  • AZN

    -0.2000

    64.49

    -0.31%

  • BTI

    -0.0100

    35.39

    -0.03%

  • BP

    -0.8800

    28.93

    -3.04%

  • SCS

    0.0600

    13.14

    +0.46%

  • JRI

    0.1600

    13.53

    +1.18%

  • BCC

    1.4700

    142.32

    +1.03%

  • BCE

    0.3000

    28.37

    +1.06%

  • CMSD

    0.2350

    25.125

    +0.94%

Greenland court extends detention of anti-whaling activist Watson
Greenland court extends detention of anti-whaling activist Watson / Photo: STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN - AFP

Greenland court extends detention of anti-whaling activist Watson

A Greenland court decided Wednesday to hold US-Canadian anti-whaling activist Paul Watson an additional 28 days pending a decision on his extradition to Japan, an anti-whaling group said.

Text size:

Watson was detained in Nuuk, the capital of the Danish autonomous territory, in July on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant that accuses him of causing damage to one of its whaling ships in the Antarctic in 2010 and injuring a whaler.

"He has been given a further 28 days' detention, which is scandalous," Lamya Essemlali, head of the anti-whaling organisation Sea Shepherd's French branch, told AFP after Wednesday's detention hearing.

Greenland's police also confirmed the extension in a statement, without saying when a new hearing would be held.

She said the next hearing would be held on October 2, adding that his lawyers would appeal the decision.

Lawyers for Watson, 73, told AFP ahead of the hearing that they expected the court to extend his custody as a legal review of the extradition request continues.

"We are disappointed, even though we were expecting this decision," Essemlali said.

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.

Japan accuses Watson of injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers' activities.

His lawyers say he is innocent, adding that they have video footage proving the crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was thrown, but the Nuuk court has refused to view it at custody hearings.

According to Essemlali, "the judge agreed to look at the Japanese footage but refused to look at ours".

"With their images we can't see where the shot landed, unlike ours," she said.

- 'Several legal steps' -

The custody hearings are solely about Watson's detention, and not the question of his guilt nor the extradition request.

The decision about his extradition will be taken independently.

Greenland police must first decide whether there is a basis for extradition, after which the Danish justice ministry will decide whether to proceed with an extradition.

No date has been announced for those decisions.

The justice ministry told AFP the review of the extradition request was "an ongoing process".

"It is a process with several legal steps, and the Ministry of Justice is currently awaiting the legal assessment from the Greenland police and the Director of Public Prosecutions," it said in an email.

French President Emmanuel Macron's office has called for Watson's release, as have around 100,000 people who have signed a global petition.

Watson is a controversial figure among environmentalists because of his confrontational approach, which he calls "aggressive non-violence".

He told AFP in an interview at the Nuuk prison in late August that he was continuing his fight from his cell.

- 'Bright side' -

"If they think it prevents our opposition, I've just changed ship. My ship right now is Prison Nuuk," he said.

He said Japan was using him "to set an example that you don't mess around with their whaling".

Essemlali, one of his strongest supporters, told AFP this week that while Watson's arrest was "very unfair", it had provided an opportunity to shed light on Japan's whaling practices.

"The bright side of it is that there has never been as much (of a) spotlight on Japanese whaling."

"This is what we've been doing for so long, to expose what Japan is doing in Antarctica, how Japan is violating the global moratorium on whaling," she said.

Shintaro Takeda, a former harpooner who now works on land for Japan's whaling company Kyodo Senpaku, who witnessed some of the confrontations, told AFP that Watson's actions had endangered lives.

The activists "tried to wrap ropes around our propeller, and all kinds of things, which escalated year by year," Takeda, 54, said in an interview in Tokyo.

Watson has a ship stationed in each hemisphere, ready to jump into action if one of the countries that still allow whaling -- Iceland, Japan and Norway -- were to resume the hunt.

G.Rehman--DT