New Zealand Premier Key: Can't help whaling activist held in Japan

May 24, 2010, 2:32 GMT

Wellington - The New Zealand government cannot intervene to help anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune, 42, who faces a 15-year prison sentence if convicted at a trial starting this week in Japan, Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

The New Zealand citizen climbed aboard a Japanese whaling ship in February in Antarctic waters after his high-speed protest trimaran Ady Gil sank following a collision with the boat.

Bethune said he planned to make a 'citizen's arrest' of the Shonan Maru II's captain and present him with a multi-million dollar bill for the loss of the Ady Gil.

He was arrested, however, when the ship returned to Tokyo, where he said he was treated like a 'terrorist or a psychopathic killer,' with a hood over his head and accompanied by more than 100 security officers.

Bethune's trial on charges of trespass, causing injury, vandalism, carrying a knife and obstructing commercial activities is scheduled to start Thursday in Tokyo.

The father of two teenage daughters told the Sunday Star-Times that the Japanese were not interested in the sinking of the Ady Gil, which was protesting Japan's whaling activities with the US-based Seas Shepherd Conservation Society and had not asked him a single question about it.

Key told Television New Zealand Monday that the government was giving Bethune the consular support offered to all New Zealanders in trouble overseas, but it could not stop him going to jail if that was his sentence.

He said there was no difference between Bethune's situation in Japan and six Taiwanese people who were arrested last week and charged with importing illegal drugs into New Zealand.

They would be tried in New Zealand's courts: 'If they're found guilty, they'll do a jail term here,' he said.