Paris, July 25, (dpa/GNA) – Well-known anti-whaling activist Paul Watson is no longer wanted by the international police organization Interpol, after the “red notice” against him was deleted.
The notice issued at Japan’s request has been deleted, according to a spokesman for the France-based organization on Wednesday.
An internal control commission made the decision in light of Denmark’s decision not to extradite Watson to Japan.
A red notice allows a country to request that a person be located and provisionally arrested. It is not the same as an international arrest warrant. Interpol coordinates cross-border cooperations, but each country decides for itself how to handle a case.
According to Watson’s lawyer, William JuliĂ©, the commission considered the manhunt for the conservationist to be disproportionate, partly because the case was so old and no serious crime had been alleged.
Following an incident with a whaling ship in the Antarctic in 2010, the Japanese authorities had Watson searched and accused him of damaging the ship and preventing the whalers from doing their work. Watson denied any wrongdoing.
In July last year, the Canadian-American citizen was detained in Greenland. However, Denmark eventually released him and decided not to extradite him to Japan.
The 74-year-old Watson was one of the first members of Greenpeace and later founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which deployed more confrontational methods to protect marine mammals.
Some environmentalists consider him a hero, while others consider him too radical. His actions have antagonized various whaling nations, especially Japan.
GNA