Paul Watson, the leader of the controversial Sea Shepherd Conservation Society dedicated to protecting marine mammals, appeared before a court in Germany on Monday, following his arrest in Frankfurt over the weekend on an outstanding ten-year-old arrest warrant issued by Costa Rica.
After Monday's hearing, Watson's lawyer told reporters that the judge ordered his client to remain in custody until German authorities take a final decision on a Costa Rican request to extradite him to the South American nation. A hearing on the issue is expected on Wednesday.
Authorities in Costa Rica wants Watson to stand trial on a decade-old attempted murder charge stemming from a 2002 incident involving a Costa Rican vessel illegally hunting for shark fins in Guatemalan waters.
Watson was arrested on Saturday at the Frankfurt airport on an international arrest warrant issued by Costa Rica. According to German prosecutors, Watson is wanted by authorities in Costa Rica for using his ship in 2002 to intimidate another vessel and putting its crew at risk.
The developments come a day after the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society announced Watson's arrest in Germany on charge of an alleged violation of ships traffic off Guatemala's coast during the shooting of the film Sharkwater in 2002.
In the statement, the anti-whaling group said the incident in question took place on the high seas in Guatemalan waters after a Sea Shepherd ship encountered the Costa Rican vessel 'Varadero.' It said Varadero was at the time engaged in illegal shark finning operation, the practice of catching sharks, slicing off their valuable fins and returning the fish to the water where it subsequently dies of its injuries.
Sea Shepherd said it tried to stop the Varadero crew from the illegal shark finning activities and escort the vessel back to port to be prosecuted, as ordered by the Guatemalan authorities. It insisted that a Guatemalan gunboat was dispatched to intercept the Sea Shepherd crew as they were escorting Varadero back to port.
"The crew of the Varadero accused the Sea Shepherd of trying to kill them, while the video evidence proves this to be a fallacy. To avoid the Guatemalan gunboat, Sea Shepherd then set sail for Costa Rica, where they uncovered even more illegal shark finning activities in the form of dried shark fins by the thousands on the roofs of industrial buildings," the group claimed the statement.
Sea Shepherd, a campaign group best known for disrupting Japan's annual whale hunt, stressed that Captain Watson was being assisted by the European Parliament Vice-President Daniel Cohn Bendit and the European deputy Jose Bove to facilitate his release "before this nonsense goes any further."
"With Costa Rica's rich biodiversity, it would be a travesty for them not to stand up for sharks, which sit at the highest levels of the food chain assuring balance among ecological communities in the ocean," Sea Shepherd said in the statement posted on its website.
Watson, one of the co-founders of the Greenpeace Foundation, was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the environmental heroes of the 20th Century. The 62-year-old Canadian has served as Master and Commander on seven different Sea Shepherd ships since 1978. He currently commands the flagship Steve Irwin. He continues to lead Sea Shepherd campaigns to protect defenseless marine wildlife around the world.
As the plight of the sharks becomes more desperate, Sea Shepherd has begun to outline a new shark campaign for 2012. Julie Andersen, founder of Shark Savers and Shark Angels, has joined Sea Shepherd to lead its global campaign to save sharks from extinction. According to the marine wildlife watchdog, the first sop of the mission will be the South Pacific in June.
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Market Analysis
June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.