COPENHAGEN, Denmark Reuters —Denmark released anti-whaling activist Paul Watson from detention on Tuesday and said it had rejected a Japanese request to extradite him over criminal charges dating back more than a decade. US-Canadian Watson, 74, founder of the Sea Shepherd conservationist group and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, was released in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, police in the autonomous Danish territory said. Watson was apprehended when his ship docked in Greenland in July. “I’m certainly relieved, especially since it allows me to get home to my children before Christmas,” Paul Watson told Reuters after his release on Tuesday. Lamya Essemlali, the head of Sea Shepherd France, who has visited Watson in detention in Greenland, said the news had taken her by surprise.

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Persons: Paul Watson, Canadian Watson, Shepherd, Watson, “ I’m, ” Paul Watson, “, ”, Peter Hummelgaard, Julie Stage, Emmanuel Macron, Brigitte Bardot, Lamya Essemlali, Shepherd France Organizations: Denmark Reuters —, Paul Watson Foundation, Reuters, Ministry of Justice, ” Locations: COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Denmark Reuters — Denmark, Canadian, Nuuk, Greenland, Japan, Copenhagen, France