Japan Seeks to Arrest Sea Shepherd Anti-whaling Activists

Japan today said it would take legal action against three members of the Sea Shepherd conservation group, including one Briton, whom it accused of obstructing its whaling fleet during clashes in the Antarctic early last year.

In a further sign of Japan's hardline stance against anti-whaling activists, police will place the men, a Briton named by sources as Daniel Bebawi, 28, from Nottingham, and two Americans on an international wanted list as soon as arrest warrants are issued.

"It's only natural to seek an arrest warrant as we've determined that a crime was committed," Nobutaka Machimura, the government's chief spokesman, told reporters.

"Regardless of the differences of opinion, it is unacceptable that those involved (in whaling) get injured … or have their lives put in danger."

Sea Shepherd was unavailable for comment this afternoon.

Only last month police charged two Greenpeace activists with stealing a consignment of whale meat they had intercepted to support allegations that Japanese whalers had pilfered large quantities of meat to sell on the black market.

Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, both members of the group's Japan branch, are accused of stealing a box containing 23kg of whale meat from a postal company warehouse in April.

Japan claims that the three men involved in the latest case illegally obstructed the whaling fleet by jamming the propeller of the Kaiko Maru with a rope and hurling flares onto its deck in February 2007.

Police will not, however, pursue allegations that two whalers were injured by containers of butyric acid - rancid butter - hurled by Sea Shepherd activists.The environmental group claimed that the Kaiko Maru had twice rammed one of its ships, leaving gashes in its hull, and denied that whalers had been injured in the acid attacks.

Japan's recent hunt in the southern ocean was frustrated by protests from Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace. It had planned to catch 850 minke whales but returned with only 551.

Sea Shepherd has vowed to disrupt the next whaling expedition, which is due to start at the end of the year.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986 but allows Japan to conduct "lethal research" into the cetaceans' migratory and breeding habits.

The moratorium also requires that meat from the hunts be sold on the open market, although domestic consumption is at an all-time low.