On 23 July 2024, an Interpol officer sent a message into the internal system of the Lyon-based international police agency. The officer reported an event that had taken place two days earlier, almost four thousand kilometres away: Paul Watson, the emblematic founder of the marine animal protection NGO Sea Shepherd, had been arrested in Greenland.

The white-bearded “pirate” was on a stopover in Nuuk, the capital of this autonomous territory of Denmark, when Danish police put him in a van, handcuffed. The reason: the 73-year-old activist has been the subject of a red notice issued by Interpol, at Japan’s request, since 2012. In other words, a wanted notice, and a request for extradition, sent to the police services of the organisation’s 196 member states, for charges of “breaking into the Vessel, Damage to Property, Forcible Obstruction of Business, and Injury.” This notice, which is not an international arrest warrant but has all the hallmarks of one, has had a direct impact on the life of the environmental activist twelve years after it was issued. And it’s not over yet.

Paul Watson was released on Tuesday 17 December after five months in prison. The Danish justice system considers that the length of his detention, the nature of the alleged offences and the fact that they date back more than fourteen years do not justify his extradition to Japan, where he faces a possible fifteen years in prison. On the Japanese side, the government promises that the country’s authorities “will continue to deal with it appropriately based on law and evidence.” And they will do so with the help of Interpol: the red notice for the American-Canadian “remains valid,” a spokesman for the organisation assures Disclose. Free, Paul Watson remains under threat of re-arrest by the police in any of the countries to which he might travel.

However, the Red Notice targeting the whale defender is based on flimsy arguments, as shown by internal Interpol documents obtained by Disclose. It is all the weaker for the fact that, for the time being, it is based almost exclusively on information provided by police officers at Interpol’s National Central Bureau (NCB) in Japan. These officers are civil servants of the Japanese government, which has made the septuagenarian a leading political enemy. A “dangerous“ and “violent“ activist who would jeopardise the traditional and ancestral practice of whaling.

According to the notice, Japan accuses “the head of the self-styled anti-whaling” of orchestrating an attack on a Japanese whaler, the Shonan Maru 2, in 2010. He allegedly gave the order to a New Zealand activist called Peter Bethune to board the ship. Once on board, the activist threw a bottle of butyric acid at a member of the crew, who suffered burns to the face requiring a week’s medical treatment. When questioned, Peter Bethune initially stated that he had acted on Paul Watson’s orders. In July 2010, he was given a two-year suspended prison sentence by Japan.

Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd have disputed the facts. According to them, the butyric acid projectile was a stink ball, a harmless product. As for Peter Bethune, he did not act on orders. He has now retracted his initial statements. The Japanese authorities did not want to take this into account. Nor did Interpol’s management, as internal Interpol documents obtained by Disclose show.

In March 2013, a few months after the Red Notice was issued, Paul Watson’s lawyers called for it to be withdrawn. They approached Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF), an independent body responsible within the organisation for investigating complaints from wanted persons. Two months later, the lawyers added to their request a written statement from Peter Bethune in which he withdrew the accusations made against Paul Watson. The Japanese police reacted immediately: in August of the same year, they wrote to the CCF, saying that Peter Bethune’s assertion “should be questionable.” And the Japanese authorities insisted: “[Paul Watson] and his accomplices attacked Japan lawful whaling research fleet in a very dangerous manner in the Antarctic Ocean.”

“Whale research”? This claim will soon be disproved. And not just by any institution, since in March 2014 it was the International Court of Justice that ordered Japan to stop whaling in the Antarctic, finding that Tokyo was conducting a commercial activity under the guise of “scientific research”. Despite the blatant lies of the Japanese authorities, Paul Watson’s red notice was upheld.

The political nature of this case is demonstrated by the lack of proportionality between the time spent, the seriousness of the charges and the relentlessness.

William Julié, the lawyer coordinating Paul Watson’s defence at Interpol

Almost ten years later, at the end of 2023, the notice no longer appeared on the Interpol website.A country can decide to remove a notice from the organisation’s website in order to get a wanted person to let his guard down. Just like what is going to happen to the Sea Shepherd activist. 

May 2024. Japan launches its new jewel, the Kangei Maru, a 113-metre-long whaler.Officially, the ship is to be used to hunt whales in its territorial waters. But environmentalists have their doubts: the Kangei Maru is capable of sailing as far as the North Pacific and the Antarctic. In other words, in international waters where whaling has been banned since 1986, when a moratorium came into force… which Japan is not respecting. Paul Watson, who thought he was no longer wanted by Interpol, planned to intercept the Japanese whaler in the Pacific. It was at this point that he was arrested by police in Greenland.

Paul Watson’s lawyers are now preparing their response. According to our information, they are preparing to submit a new application to the CCF to have their client’s red notice cancelled. In their application, the lawyers intend to denounce the violation of Paul Watson’s fundamental rights, the inconsistency of the case, and the lack of evidence and interest in international police cooperation. They also wish to point to the political motivation of the case, based on Article 3 of Interpol’s Constitution. This states that “it is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.” For William Julié, the lawyer coordinating the activist’s defence at Interpol, “the political nature of this case is demonstrated by the lack of proportionality between the time spent, the seriousness of the charges and the relentlessness.”

In the meantime, Paul Watson plans to “confront the world police organisation directly with this grotesque situation.” He intends to visit Interpol headquarters in Lyon in early 2025.

---

Investigation: Mathieu Martinière 
Editing: Mathias
Photograph: Alataq Moeller/Arctic Creative/AP/SIPA