Marine wildlife conservation organization Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) has alleged that German police arrested its founder Paul Watson, and plans to extradite him to Costa Rica.
The U.S.-based anti-whaling group said in a statement that Watson was detained in Frankfurt on Saturday on charge of an alleged violation of ships traffic in Costa Rica, during the shooting of the film Sharkwater in 2002.
The incident took place on the high seas in Guatemalan waters, when Sea Shepherd encountered the Costa Rican ship 'Varadero' that was found engaged in illegal shark finning operation, the practice of catching sharks, slicing off their valuable fins and returning the shark to the water where it will usually die.
Sea Shepherd says that as ordered by the Guatemalan authorities, it tried to stop the Varadero crew from shark finning activities and escort the vessel back to port to be prosecuted. In the meantime, "the tables were turned and a Guatemalan gunboat was dispatched to intercept the Sea Shepherd crew. The Varadero crew accused the Sea Shepherds 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."
A campaign group best known for disrupting Japan's annual whale hunt, Sea Shepherd said 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 on its website.
One of the co-founders of the Greenpeace Foundation, Watson 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 Conservation Society 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.
The first stop will be the South Pacific, where the team will be headed in June, said the marine wildlife watchdog.
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