Marine conservationist Captain Paul Watson, hero of the creatures of the ocean, celebrated Christmas with his young sons, aged eight and three, in France last week. Watson was released from a prison on the Danish autonomous island territory of Greenland a week ahead of Christmas after Denmark rejected a request from Japan to extradite him.
Watson, 74, was arrested in July in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, when he had docked his ship mv Paul John DeJoria, for refuelling, according to The Guardian. Interpol had issued a red-corner notice for Watson on a request from Japan, which was seeking his extradition in connection with the boarding of the Japanese whaler Shōnan Maru 2 in the Antarctic Ocean in February 2010. Watson himself had not been present at the scene of the incident and had denied the charges.
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The charges laid against Watson, including one of assault, carried a sentence of up to 15 years in jail. In fact, Watson had said in an interview from prison with The Guardian that he would probably not survive a spell in a Japanese jail. “I know that if I get sent to Japan, I’m not coming home,” he had said.
Thankfully, that possibility did not arise as Copenhagen rejected Japan’s request to extradite Watson after the Japanese government failed to give a clear assurance that the time he had already spent in the Greenland jail would be fully set off against any prison time he might be sentenced to in Japan.
“I am certainly relieved as this means I get to see my two little boys,” Watson, who was conferred with The Perfect World Foundation Award while in prison, told the newspaper upon learning of his release. “That’s really been my only concern this entire time. I understand the risks of what we do and sometimes you get arrested—although I am proud of the fact that I have never been convicted of a crime.”
Unfortunately, neither has Japan, though it continues to flout international law and continue its whaling activities in the name of tradition.
