ID :
12263
Fri, 07/11/2008 - 22:22
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https://oananews.org//node/12263
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2 Greenpeace members indicted for stealing whale meat
AOMORI, Japan, July 11 Kyodo - Prosecutors filed an indictment against two members of Greenpeace Japan for trespassing and stealing whale meat, which the conservation group presented to law-enforcement authorities as evidence in its allegations of a whale meat embezzlement scandal involving the Japanese government-sponsored research whaling program.
Greenpeace Japan members Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, were charged with theft and trespassing, the prosecutors said.
Sato and Suzuki allegedly entered a delivery post of trucking firm Seino Transportation Co.'s Aomori branch on April 16 and removed a 23-kilogram package of whale meat sent by a crew member of the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru on April 16, according to the indictment.
During questioning by investigators, the two suspects admitted to having entered the Seino office and taken the package. But they denied doing anything unlawful, insisting that they did so to obtain evidence for the embezzlement of whale meat by crew members of the whaling factory ship.
Sato and Suzuki have been detained since being arrested on June 20.
Greenpeace Japan issued a statement and expressed deep regret about the indictment of two of its members.
In the statement, Jun Hoshikawa, executive director of the group, urged Japanese law-enforcement authorities to act in similarly tough fashion against a section of the Japanese government and whaling officials and to unveil the facts behind what the government calls research whaling operations.
In a separate statement, Greenpeace's international executive director Gerd Leipold said, ''From the beginning it has been clear that the arrest and detention and now the charging of the two activists has been politically motivated.''''Instead of prosecuting peaceful protesters and those who exposed crimes within the whaling program, the government of Japan should revoke all Southern (Antarctic) Ocean whaling permits, release the activists and order an immediate and independent investigation into the embezzlement scandal,'' Leipold said.
On May 15, Greenpeace Japan announced that it had filed a complaint with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office against crew members of the Nisshin Maru the same month on suspicion of professional embezzlement.
At that time, the group said that the Nisshin Maru crew, engaged in a government-sponsored whaling program, may have embezzled prime whale meat. Sato held the meat in his hand at a news conference in Tokyo.
The following day, Seino filed a report with the Aomori prefectural police, prompting the police to open an investigation into a possible case of theft.
Prosecutors decided on June 20 not to file an indictment against the crew members, saying that the operating company of the Nisshin Maru distributed the whale meat to crew members as a bonus.
Greenpeace Japan members Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, were charged with theft and trespassing, the prosecutors said.
Sato and Suzuki allegedly entered a delivery post of trucking firm Seino Transportation Co.'s Aomori branch on April 16 and removed a 23-kilogram package of whale meat sent by a crew member of the Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru on April 16, according to the indictment.
During questioning by investigators, the two suspects admitted to having entered the Seino office and taken the package. But they denied doing anything unlawful, insisting that they did so to obtain evidence for the embezzlement of whale meat by crew members of the whaling factory ship.
Sato and Suzuki have been detained since being arrested on June 20.
Greenpeace Japan issued a statement and expressed deep regret about the indictment of two of its members.
In the statement, Jun Hoshikawa, executive director of the group, urged Japanese law-enforcement authorities to act in similarly tough fashion against a section of the Japanese government and whaling officials and to unveil the facts behind what the government calls research whaling operations.
In a separate statement, Greenpeace's international executive director Gerd Leipold said, ''From the beginning it has been clear that the arrest and detention and now the charging of the two activists has been politically motivated.''''Instead of prosecuting peaceful protesters and those who exposed crimes within the whaling program, the government of Japan should revoke all Southern (Antarctic) Ocean whaling permits, release the activists and order an immediate and independent investigation into the embezzlement scandal,'' Leipold said.
On May 15, Greenpeace Japan announced that it had filed a complaint with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office against crew members of the Nisshin Maru the same month on suspicion of professional embezzlement.
At that time, the group said that the Nisshin Maru crew, engaged in a government-sponsored whaling program, may have embezzled prime whale meat. Sato held the meat in his hand at a news conference in Tokyo.
The following day, Seino filed a report with the Aomori prefectural police, prompting the police to open an investigation into a possible case of theft.
Prosecutors decided on June 20 not to file an indictment against the crew members, saying that the operating company of the Nisshin Maru distributed the whale meat to crew members as a bonus.
