Activist charged after boarding whaling vessel

Japanese prosecutors have indicted an anti-whaling activist for illegally boarding a harpoon boat as part of a protest against the ship’s whale hunting expedition in Antarctic seas in February.

Peter Bethune, from New Zealand, had jumped aboard the Shonan Maru 2 during the annual face-off between whalers and their opponents with the stated goal of making a citizen’s arrest of the captain, while handing over a $3m bill for the destruction of a Sea Shepherd protest ship a month earlier.