Anti-Whalers Facing Charges from Japan

Japan on Monday put out international arrest warrants for three Western anti-whaling activists who tried to disrupt a controversial whaling expedition in the Antarctic Ocean in 2007, police said.

"It's natural to seek arrest warrants if it has been judged that a crime took place," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura, the government's spokesperson.

"Whatever opinions they have about whaling, it is impermissible for them to take such violent measures which risk the lives of the people involved," he told reporters.

Police said Japan sent to Interpol with court approval the names of three members of the Sea Shepherd group - Jon Batchelor, 30, and Ralph Anthony Koo, 41, both from the United States, and Daniel Bebawi, 28, from Britain.

Koo is suspected of hurling a warning flare into the Japanese ship in February in 2007, while the others are suspected of throwing a rope around the ship's propeller and blocking navigation, a police official said...