Arrest warrant for Nottingham whaling activist

JAPAN has issued an arrest warrant for a Nottingham man over alleged damage to its whaling fleet.

In an action described as "petty", Japanese police want to place Daniel Bebawi, 28, and two Americans on an international wanted list.

The activists from conservation group Sea Shepherd are accused of damaging the propeller of Japanese whaler the Kaiko Maru in the Antarctic in February, 2007.

But Mr Bebawi, who lives in Nottingham city centre, is not taking the threat seriously.

"They are just messing about really. It's a face-saving political exercise," he said. "It's for the Japanese public more than anything else. I don't think Interpol will take it seriously."

Sea Shepherd's UK spokesman Darren Collis said he believed the warrants were issued in retaliation for the anti-whaling group's success in disrupting Japan's whale hunt in the Southern Ocean last year.

Mr Collis, who on a Sea Shepherd vessel at the time of the incident, said: "It's pure retaliation for preventing them from killing over a thousand whales and costing them a huge amount of money.

"It's a very petty action."

Mr Bebawi maintained that his actions as an activist for Sea Shepherd were legal.

The Japanese government claims the whales where being hunted for research, which is legal, but Mr Bebawi says they were being sold for meat and the hunts were illegal.

"I know what they are alleging but I don't think they've got any evidence," he said. "We enforce the law, they are the ones who act illegally."

"They are just trying to distract everybody from what's going on."

Mr Bebawi only became aware of the allegation after being contacted by a Japanese journalist.

He said: "The police haven't been in touch at all and I'm pretty sure they won't be."

The Japanese government has labelled the conservation group "terrorists" for the direct action campaigners have taken against the whaling fleet in recent years.

Nobutaka Machimura, the Japanese government's chief spokesman, said: "Regardless of a difference of opinion, it is unacceptable that those who are involved in whaling get injured... or face life-threatening dangers."

Sea Shepherd says its strategies and tactics are designed to avoid physical injury to the whalers.

The warrants relate to clashes when the anti-whaling group's boat and the whaling vessel collided twice in the Antarctic near a pod of whales.

Earlier this year, there were further clashes between whalers and the conservation group, in which another Briton was held on a whaling ship.

Japan kills around 1,000 whales each winter as part of its annual "scientific programme". Although the slaughter is allowed under International Whaling Commission (IWC) rules, Japan's actions have drawn international condemnation – including from the British Government.

In June, Sea Shepherd announced plans to disrupt the 2008/2009 hunt, pledging to "sink the Japanese fleet economically".