AFPAnti-whaling activist Paul Watson has been freed from prison in Greenland where he spent five months in custody, after Denmark refused a Japanese request to extradite him from
Mr Watson, 74, was arrested by the police when his boat stopped in Greenland's capital, Nuuk, last July.
Police had executed a 2012 Japanese warrant accusing him of damaging a Japanese whaling ship, disrupting business and injuring a crew member during an incident in Antarctic waters in February 2010.
Mr. Watson, who is a Canadian-American citizen and featured in the reality TV show Whale Wars, has denied any wrongdoing. He told the BBC of his "relief" at being freed and being able to return home to see his children.
Speaking on a video call from Nuuk, where he had just been released from prison, Mr Watson said his time in prison had drawn attention to "illegal" Japanese whaling.
"All the evidence shows that I wasn't even there when this crime is said to have happened," he said. "We're recording everything. Everything is on film."
Conservation groups have criticized whaling and eating whale meat, but officials in Japan argue that it is part of the country's culture and way of life.
The Danish justice ministry confirmed that it would not comply with the Japanese extradition request, basing its decision on the "nature of the situation" as well as the fact that the incident went back 14 years.
His lawyer Julie Stage told the BBC that Mr Watson was "obviously relieved" and "looking forward to being reunited with his wife and children".
Since Greenland is an independent region of Denmark, the decision on its expansion was made in Copenhagen. Although Japan and Denmark do not have an extension treaty, the government in Tokyo had asked Denmark to give up.
Denmark's justice minister, Peter Hummelgaard, said it was "primarily important" to ensure that the time Mr Watson spent in Greenland was deducted from any prison sentence he might have been given. to have in Japan later.
He said the ministry decided "it cannot be assumed with the necessary certainty that this will be the case" after discussions with Japanese authorities.
Mr Watson's vessel, known as the M/Y John Paul DeJoria, had been heading to the North Pacific with a crew of 26 volunteers on board, in an attempt to stop a whaling boat New Japanese when she went to refuel in Nuuk on July 21.
At a previous detention hearing, Mr Watson told the court that the case was "about revenge for a television show that really embarrassed Japan in the eyes of the world".
Mr Watson said he also planned to go to Interpol in the New Year to discuss an outstanding red notice for his arrest.
He also said that his group was ready to continue the anti-whaling activities.
For years, Mr Watson has been a controversial figure known for clashes with whaling ships at sea.
The activist is the vice president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which he left in 2022 to set up the Captain Paul Watson Foundation.
Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission and resumed commercial whaling in 2019, after a 30-year hiatus - although it continued whaling for what it said they were the purposes of research.