Japanese prosecutors have aggressively gone after Peter Bethune, and issued an indictment against the Sea Shepherd activist. They’re really piling on the charges, which the AP reports as: “assault, illegal possession of a knife, destruction of property, obstruction of business and trespassing.”
Bethune’s saga began in January, when the tiny boat he skippered, the Ady Gil, was rammed in antarctic waters by the large Japanese whaling ship, the Shonen Maru #2. In mid-Feburary Bethune managed to sneak on board the Shonen Maru #2 late at night, and then proceeded to give the ship’s captain a $3 million bill for sinking the Ady Gil. He refused to leave the ship and has since been taken to Japan and arrested.
The last thing that Japan’s whaling interests are going to want is for this trial to gain widespread worldwide publicity. The captain of the Shonen Maru #2 was very likely guilty of attempted murder for deliberately ramming the motionless Ady Gil in frigid arctic waters, an incident that was clearly caught on video.
So, to a large extent, the future of Japan’s whaling program hinges on whether the anti-whaling community can generate enough mainstream press to give Bethune’s trial—and the whaling fleet’s reckless actions—the exposure it deserves. There’s really only two ways this can go: Bethune is either going to draw a lengthy prison term, or he’s going to be the guy who breaks the back of Japan’s whaling program. Link.
