GREENPEACE MEMBERS ARRESTED OVER WHALE MEAT THEFT
06.23.08 - Leído 39 veces. Enviar esta notaIsabel Reynolds
Japanese police arrested two Greenpeace activists on Friday for stealing a box of whale meat, a police spokesman said
TOKYO, Japan; June 23, 2008.- Police were searching Greenpeace’s Tokyo offices, media said.
The move came after Greenpeace used the meat as evidence when complaining to prosecutors that members of Japan’s whaling fleet crew shipped large quantities of the meat home, which they said amounted to embezzlement.
Japan says its whaling programme is for scientific research purposes, but much of the meat ends up on restaurant tables. A recent poll showed that a majority of Japanese support whaling.
Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki are suspected of breaking into the offices of a trucking company in the northern prefecture of Aomori in April and taking the box of meat, which they later displayed to media as evidence of embezzlement by the whalers, Kyodo news agency said.
Greenpeace have admitted taking the meat, which they said was worth up to 350,000 yen (US$3,242) during what they said was a four-month undercover investigation.
Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 international moratorium, but Tokyo has campaigned for a lifting of the ban, saying whaling is part of the country’s cultural tradition.
The country’s fleet caught only 551 minke whales compared with a planned 850 in its latest Antarctic hunt, after obstruction by anti-whalers.
The International Whaling Commission is set to hold its annual meeting in Chile next week.
(Reuters)
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