A Greenland judge on Wednesday ordered Paul Watson to remain detained until Oct. 23. File Photo by Florian Schuh/EPA
Oct. 2 (UPI) — A court in Greenland on Wednesday ruled to extend anti-whaling activist Paul Watson‘s detention in the country for three weeks as Denmark weighs whether to extradite him to Japan.
The Paul Watson Foundation said a Greenland judge has denied the mariner to enter documents into evidence that they claim would prove innocence as he ruled in favor of prosecutors’ requests to extend his detention on Wednesday.
“In our view, the criteria for extradition have been met according to the accusations in the Japanese arrest warrant,” Greenland Court Judge Stig Norskov-Jensen said. “Therefore there is no point to analyzing any documents. The detention is extended by three weeks, until Wednesday, Oct. 23.”
Watson, 73, was arrested on July 21 during a refueling stop in Greenland and is currently being held in Nuuk. Japan had issued an international warrant for Watson to face trial for an anti-whaling intervention in the Antarctic region back in 2010.
Authorities charged Watson with complicity in causing harm to a person when he allegedly attacked Japanese whalers while they tried to catch and kill the animals.
Lawyers for Watson called for the court to offer Watson a fair trial, as he has twice appealed the attention with both resulting in Greenland’s High Court extending it.
“Paul Watson has been in custody for four months without the Court of Greenland or the High Court of Greenland having permitted for Paul Watson to document in court what the case is about,” Watson’s attorney Jonas Christoffersen said in a statement on Watson’s website.
“In our opinion, it is against his human rights for a judge to assess the evidence and the basis for a remand.”
Watson’s lawyers also sought to elevate the issue of his detention to the Supreme Court but a decision has not yet been handed down.
Prosecutors have argued that Watson’s participation in an anti-whaling option, specifically a 2010 “stink bom action” on a Japanese whaling vessel by Pete Bethune, justified Japan’s extradition defense and made evidence presented by the prosecution irrelevant.
Since his arrest, there has been growing support for Watson’s release, led by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called on the authorities in Denmark not to extradite him to Japan. Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Actor Pierce Bronson is among celebrities who have come to Watson’s cause, who sent a letter to Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen asking her to free Watson.