Anti-whaling activist Paul Watson arrested in Greenland and could be extradited to Japan | World news

The 73-year-old Canadian-American citizen will be brought before a district judge with a request to keep him in custody until a decision is made on his possible extradition to Japan, Greenland police said.

An anti-whaling activist was arrested in Greenland following an international arrest warrant from Japan.

Paul Watson will be brought before a district judge with a request to hold him in custody pending a decision on his possible extradition to Japan, police added.

The 73-year-old was arrested when his ship docked in Nuuk, the capital of the autonomous Danish territory, Greenland police said.

According to the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, more than a dozen police officers boarded the ship when it stopped to refuel and took Watson away in handcuffs.

In a statement, the foundation said: “The arrest is believed to be related to an earlier Red Notice issued for Captain Watson’s previous anti-whaling operations in the Antarctic region.”

“We implore the Danish government to release Captain Watson and not to comply with this politically motivated request,” added Locky MacLean, director of the foundation.

The foundation said Watson’s ship, the M/Y John Paul DeJoria, along with a 25-person volunteer crew, was scheduled to sail through the Northwest Passage along northern Canada into the North Pacific to confront a newly built Japanese whaling ship.

It describes the whaling ship as a “murderous enemy without compassion or empathy, hell-bent on destroying the most intelligent, self-aware and sensitive creatures in the sea.”

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Leading member of Greenpeace

Mr Watson was formerly chairman of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, whose confrontations with whaling ships on the high seas have received celebrity support and which has appeared in the reality TV series “Whale Wars”.

But the company’s direct action tactics brought the Canadian-American citizen into confrontation with the authorities.

He was detained in Germany in 2012 on an extradition warrant from Costa Rica, but waived bail after learning that Japan also wanted to extradite him.

Tokyo accuses him of endangering the lives of whalers during operations in the Atlantic.

Since then, Mr. Watson has lived in several countries, including France and the United States.

He left Sea Shepherd in 2022 to start his own organization.

Mr Watson was also a leading member of Greenpeace, but left the organisation in 1977 after disagreements over his aggressive tactics.