Japanese Police Issue Arrest Warrants for Anti-Whaling Activists
TOKYO, Japan, August 20, 2008 (ENS) – The Japanese police have issued international arrest warrants against three crewmembers who participated in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s campaign to interfere with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean during the 2006-2007 whaling season.
The Public Safety Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department accuses two Americans and one British member of the anti-whaling group of forcible obstruction of business and says it intends to place them on an international wanted list through the International Criminal Police Organization.
Warrants have been issued for Jon Batchelor and Dr. Ralph Koo of the United States and Daniel Bebawi of the United Kingdom.
The Metropolitan Police Department alleges the three men attempted to jam the propeller of the whaling vessel Kaiko Maru with a rope on February 12, 2007.
“It is the first time that a criminal case has been established for sabotage against Japanese research whaling ships,” according to the “Mainichi Daily News.”
“It’s a mystery to me why the Japanese police would target three relatively minor crewmembers,” said Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd campaign leader and the organization’s president and founder. “As captain, all Sea Shepherd crewmembers act in accordance with my orders.”
“All activities opposing the illegal actions of the Japanese whaling fleet are my responsibility, yet no charges have been filed against me,” said Watson. “This is absurd and makes no sense at all.”
“We are the sea-cops and our targets are criminals who illegally plunder the oceans of life in violation of international laws. If the Japanese police succeed in arresting any of these three men we will use the courts as a forum to focus international attention on Japan’s continued illegal whaling activities,” said Watson.
Batchelor, 30, is a forestry consultant from Washington state, and Koo, 41, is an emergency physician in Sacramento, California. Bebawi, 28 is from Nottingham, England.
The charges stem from an incident where Watson says the Japanese whaling vessel Keiko Maru rammed the Sea Shepherd ship Robert Hunter.
The Institute for Cetacean Research, the Japanese government agency that owns and operates the whaling ships, has accused the Robert Hunter of ramming the Kaiko Maru.
The collisions occurred February 12, 2007 after the Kaiko Maru was intercepted by the Sea Shepherd ship in the Southern Ocean as it was chasing a pod of whales, which allowed the whales to escape.
Sea Shepherd captains Alex Cornelissen, left,
and Paul Watson flank a skull and
crossbones design on the organization’s
vessel the Farley Mowat. (Photo
courtesy SSCS)
The collisions were documented by a film crew onboard the Robert Hunter, which was under the command of Captain Alex Cornelissen of the Netherlands. At the time, Captain Watson was nearby onboard a second Sea Shepherd vessel, the Farley Mowat.
The ramming was investigated by the Australian Federal police.
Watson says, “The forensic evidence demonstrated that it was the Kaiko Maru that rammed the Robert Hunter. The support beams in the bow of the Robert Hunter were bent forward and that means the force came from behind. If the Robert Hunter had rammed the Keiko Maru the support beams would have been bent backwards.”
The Public Safety Bureau also alleges that Sea Shepherd members also threw bottles containing butyric acid at the Nisshin Maru, the whaling mother ship, injuring two crewmembers, but investigators have yet to identify the suspects. No charges have been laid.
In a statement issued on February 8, 2007, Watson said the Sea Shepherd crew “successfully delivered six liters of butyric acid onto the flensing deck of the Nisshin Maru. This ‘butter acid’ is a nontoxic obnoxious smelling substance. The foul smell has cleared the flensing deck and stopped all work of cutting up whales.”
“My crew did not injure anyone,” said Watson. “This is just a spin designed to get public sympathy for men who are themselves vicious and ruthless killers of whales.”
According to Japan’s Fisheries Agency spokesman, Hideki Moronuki, the two Japanese crewmen sustained injuries from the attack after one was hit by an empty container of acid and the other had acid squirted in his eye.
“A total fabrication,” said Watson at the time.
“What was tossed was rotten butter which is chemically defined as butyric acid the same way orange juice is defined as citric acid. It is non-toxic, non harmful and simply stinks very bad. In short, it’s a stink bomb,” Watson said Monday.
After the Sea Shepherd again used a butyric acid stink bomb to disrupt whaling this year, the Japanese retaliated with live bullets and concussion grenades. Watson says he was struck in the chest with a bullet in March 2008 and was saved by his bulletproof Kevlar vest. The incident was filmed by an onboard documentary crew from the television show Animal Planet.
The Japanese whaling vessel Kaiko Maru
and the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley
Mowat in the Southern Ocean, February
12, 2007 (Photo courtest SSCS)
Minoru Morimoto, director general of the Institute of Cetacean Research, said in June that the ICR “supports the rights of people to peacefully protest. However,” he said in a statement, “it has been clearly demonstrated over years that the actions of Sea Shepherd are far beyond peaceful. Over the 2007/2008 research season in the Antarctic, the ICR was required to defend its research vessels against increasingly violent attacks.”
The Japanese circumvent an international moratorium on commercial whaling imposed in 1986 through a loophole in the International Whaling Commission rules that allow lethal whaling for scientific research. The Japanese set their own quota of up to 935 minke whales in Antarctica last year and 50 fin whales on their annual hunt. The whaling season closed in April, the whalers had taken 551 minkes and no fin whales.
Watson says the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society intends to return for a fifth campaign to the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary in December 2008 to resume the anti-whaling actions that have prevented the whalers from taking half their self-assigned quota of whales for the last two years.
“Sea Shepherd Conservation Society actions are legal and non-violent,” Watson maintains. “In over three decades of operations, the Society has not injured a single person and no crewmember has ever been convicted of a felony crime,” he said Monday.
“What we have here is a criminal operation receiving the support of the Japanese government targeting conservationists attempting to oppose the unlawful slaughter of the whales. All I can say to the Japanese whalers is – see you in December face to face in the Southern Ocean for a show-down on the high seas once again.”
