Sea Shepherd fugitive Watson says Japan after revenge

SYDNEY — Fugitive Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson on Tuesday accused Japan of conspiring with Germany and Costa Rica to hunt him down in revenge for his attacks on its whaling operations.

In his first comments since jumping bail and fleeing Germany, where he had been under house arrest for two months, the militant environmentalist said he felt betrayed by Berlin because it had negotiated with Tokyo to extradite him.

Sea Shepherd currently operates the vessels MY Steve Irwin, the MY Bob Barker, and the MV Brigitte Bardot, and most of the group's recent activities take place in international waters. Operations have included scuttling and disabling whaling vessels at harbor, intervening in Canadian and Namibian seal hunts, shining laser light into the eyes of whalers, throwing bottles of foul-smelling butyric acid onto vessels at sea, boarding of whaling vessels while at sea, and seizure and destruction of drift nets at sea. Sea Shepherd claims that their aggressive actions are necessary as the international community has shown itself unwilling or unable to stop species-endangering whaling and fishing practices.

Watson, who for years has harassed Japan’s annual whale hunt off Antarctica, was arrested in Germany in May for extradition to Costa Rica over a high-seas confrontation over shark finning in 2002.

“We have confronted the Japanese whalers for eight seasons and we have humiliated them at sea and more importantly we have frustrated their illegal profiteering from the killing of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. This is not about justice; it is about revenge,” he said.

Earlier this year, Costa Rica filed an extradition request for Watson, accusing him of “putting a ship’s crew in danger.”

He was detained for a week in Germany before being released on bail of 250,000 euros ($306,500) and ordered to appear before police twice a day, but he fled the country on July 22.