Interpol has removed its most-wanted designation for anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd conservation group, who faced charges in Japan over a 2010 whaling ship encounter.
The international police organization had issued a “red notice” at Japan’s request for the arrest of the 74-year-old Canadian-American Watson, known for his confrontational tactics against whaling vessels on the high seas.
Interpol determined the notice was “disproportionate,” according to Watson’s Paris-based lawyer William Julie on Tuesday. Red notices are global requests for law enforcement to locate and provisionally arrest individuals pending legal action, based on judicial warrants from requesting countries.
The Captain Paul Watson Foundation quoted the activist on social media saying: “Finally I am free.” Watson stated that Japanese whalers had pursued him for 14 years, since his initial detention in Frankfurt, Germany in May 2012, describing it as “an incredible pursuit by a very powerful nation using unlimited resources.”
An Interpol spokesperson confirmed to AFP that the organization’s Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF) had deleted Watson’s arrest notice. “The CCF decision was made in light of new facts, including the refusal by the Kingdom of Denmark to extradite Mr Watson. This is in line with normal procedures,” the spokesperson explained.
Watson was arrested and held in Greenland in July 2024 on a decade-old Japanese warrant accusing him of damaging a whaling ship and injuring a crew member. He was released in December after Denmark rejected Japan’s extradition request regarding the 2010 incident. Watson departed Denmark on December 20, returning to France where his children attend school.
Watson’s lawyer stated that the CCF found Interpol’s red notice failed to meet organizational standards, citing “the disproportionate nature of the charges, the considerable passage of time since the alleged facts, Denmark’s refusal to extradite him, and the fact that several other countries declined to act on Japan’s arrest or extradition requests.”
Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, welcomed the notice cancellation as “good news” but cautioned that Watson remains vulnerable to arrest. “It does not give Paul Watson his freedom of movement because the Japanese arrest warrant is sufficient for a country to order his arrest,” she noted.
The removal of the red notice represents a significant development in Watson’s long-standing legal battle with Japanese authorities over his anti-whaling activities.
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