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By Tom Little, Louise Rasmussen and Isabelle Yr Carlsson
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Denmark released anti-whaling activist Paul Watson from detention on Tuesday and said it had rejected a Japanese request to extradite him over criminal charges dating back more than a decade.
U.S.-Canadian Watson, 74, founder of the Sea Shepherd conservationist group and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, was released in Greenland's capital Nuuk, police in the autonomous Danish territory said.
Watson was apprehended when his ship docked in Greenland in July.
"I'm certainly relieved, especially since it allows me to get home to my children before Christmas," Paul Watson told Reuters after his release on Tuesday.
"I haven't seen my children since June. But the support here in Greenland has been incredible," he said, adding that he had received more than 4,000 letters of support, including around a dozen from supporters in Japan.
Denmark's justice ministry said it had based its decision on an overall assessment, including the age of the case and in particular an uncertainty over whether time spent in Greenland detention could be deducted from any final sentence in Japan.
"Based on correspondence with the Japanese authorities on this matter, the Ministry of Justice believes that it cannot be assumed with the necessary certainty that this will be the case," Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard said in a statement.
Japan had issued an international warrant for Watson's arrest, seeking him on charges of breaking into a Japanese vessel in the Antarctic Ocean in 2010, obstructing its business and causing injury as well as property damage.
Japanese government's top spokesperson said on Wednesday that the nation had received the notification of Denmark's decision on Watson.
"We regret that the Danish government has not accepted our extradition request and we have conveyed this to the Danish side," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said. He added that the nation would continue to respond appropriately based on the law and evidence.
Watson's lawyer Julie Stage said she was satisfied with the decision.
"We think it has taken a long time, but the most important thing is that it ends with the right decision," she said.
Watson has had strong support in France, where he has lived with his family since 2023, with a campaign for his release enlisting the support of French President Emmanuel Macron and actress Brigitte Bardot.
Lamya Essemlali, the head of Sea Shepherd France, who has visited Watson in detention in Greenland, said the news had taken her by surprise.
"When I got the news, I mean, I could hardly think, honestly. I just rushed into my clothes and rushed to the prison. I think I still don't realise really that he's out," she said.
(Reporting by Tom Little, Louise Breusch Rasmussen, Isabelle Yr Carlsson and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen; Additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko and Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Editing by Terje Solsvik, Jan Harvey, Mark Porter and Michael Perry)
