Sea Shepherd chief targeted for arrest by Japan Coast Guard+

TOKYO, April 30 Kyodo -
The Japan Coast Guard has obtained an arrest warrant for the head of the
antiwhaling Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for allegedly ordering members of
the group to obstruct operations by Japan's whaling fleet, investigative
sources said Friday.
The Tokyo Coast Guard Office obtained the arrest warrant for Paul Watson,
founder and president of the antiwhaling group, on suspicion of assault and
obstruction of business.
The Japanese authorities will put Watson, 59, on the international wanted list
through Interpol, the sources said. But the authorities are likely to ask the
international police agency only to issue a ''blue notice'' -- a request for
police in member countries to provide information about an individual's
location and activities -- not a ''red notice'' requesting arrest, they said.
The Canadian national is suspected of ordering Peter Bethune, a New Zealand
national and former captain of an antiwhaling vessel, to throw a chemical
substance onto a Japanese whaling ship in the Antarctic Sea in February and
commit other acts of obstruction.
Although Bethune was the only one directly engaged in the acts of obstruction,
the coast guard decided to arrest Watson, who was the captain of U.S.-based Sea
Shepherd's antiwhaling vessel Steve Irwin, which was used in the event, as
Bethune said during the investigation that he had acted under Watson's orders.
Watson told Kyodo News in a telephone interview Friday that the move by the
Japanese authority does not concern him.
''It is clearly a politically motivated arrest warrant. The Japanese Coast
Guard hasn't bothered to interview the captain of the Shonan Maru 2...it's not
an investigation into an infraction,'' he said.
''Japan is doing everything they can to stop us going down to the Southern
Ocean next year,'' he added.
Bethune, 45, former captain of the antiwhaling group's vessel Ady Gil, has been
indicted in Japan on five criminal charges in connection with obstructing
Japanese whaling.
He is suspected of throwing a bottle of a chemical substance onto the Shonan
Maru No. 2 and injuring a crew member on Feb. 11, and illegally boarding the
security escort ship of the Japanese whaling fleet while carrying a knife on
Feb. 15.
==Kyodo
2010-04-30 23:34:01


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