Captain Paul Watson says that the alleged incident in 2002 did not occur in Costa Rican waters. Photograph: Corbis

He’s no angel.  That would be the view of whaling and fishing interests, which include countries and big companies (plus plenty of soulless mercenaries, poachers and thugs).  Whales might think otherwise. 800 large endangered bluefin tuna, saved from poachers by this man and his organization, might too.  He counts plenty of our contributors as admiring, angel-cheering, distant observers.  Our observations are tempered by acknowledgement of the conundrums wrapped up in his in-your-face, semi-legal tactics (not our style).  But we care about fisheries and related topics as much (while trying to keep our wits about us) as those complexities.  And those forces Paul Watson is battling are certainly not always angelic themselves. Nor are we, always, for that matter.  Click the image above for the story in The Guardian:

California-based marine conservation organisation Sea Shepherd suspects that Costa Rica may have made a deal with Japan to have him extradited. Watson has been labelled an “eco-terrorist” by Japan’s government following a series of encounters with Japanese whalers in the Antarctic. Interpol has listed him as “wanted” at the request of Japan.

But Watson points out that Costa Rican president, Laura Chinchilla Miranda, met Japanese emperor Akihito in November 2011 and within six months Japan gave Costa Rica $9m to help protect its national parks.

“It is suspicious that within months of the meeting of the two heads of state I should be arrested on a 10-year-old charge from the Costa Rican government and that Costa Rica [should] receive $9m dollars from the Japanese government. There certainly is a great deal of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Japanese pressure had a hand in Costa Rica’s decision to have [me] arrested and detained in Germany awaiting extradition,” said Watson.