Police suspect sabotage in sinking of Norway whaling boat

OSLO, Norway: A Norwegian whaling boat that sank last month may have been sabotaged, police said Thursday, two days after an Internet posting by anonymous activists claiming to be behind the sinking.

The 89-foot (27-meter) fishing trawler Willassen Senior, used in Norway's hotly protested commercial whale hunts, sank at a wharf in the Arctic Lofoten Islands in the early hours of Aug. 31.

Norway angered environmentalists and many countries in 1993 by resuming the hunts in defiance of a 1986 commercial whaling ban imposed by the International Whaling Commission, and at the time faced protests, boycott threats and sabotage attempts against whaling boats.

Norway is not bound by the ban because, in keeping with IWC rules, it objected to and opted out of the moratorium.

Divers entered the sunken hull of the Willassen Senior for the first time on Thursday, and reported finds that suggest sabotage, although there were no immediate suspects.

Norwegian police had earlier downplayed the chance of sabotage.

"The boat is being raised and the indications so far in the process are that valves were intentionally opened so that sea water flooded into the boat," said Kjetil Voldset of the district police. "The police will investigate more closely what happened, and who was behind it."

An anonymous posting on the Web site of American activist periodical Bite Back, dated Sept. 11, claimed a group calling itself Agenda 21 was behind the attack, and sank the boat by opening the sea water intake valve and removing a large section of engine cooling pipe.

"On the night of August 30th, we decided to celebrate the end of commercial whaling in Iceland by removing a large section of cooling pipe in the engine room of the Norwegian whaler Willassen Senior," the posting said.

Iceland halted its commercial whale hunt in late August, a year after resuming it, saying there was not enough demand for whale meat to justify new hunting permits.

The state radio network NRK said if the activist group's description of the sabotage proves accurate, it would make the claim more credible since it was posted before police announced their suspicions.

Norway hunts minke whales, the smallest of the baleen whales at up to nine meters (30 feet), claiming they are plentiful. Whalers had harpooned just over half their 2007 quota of 1,052 whales when the season ended last month.

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On the Net:

http://www.directaction.info/news_sep11_07.htm

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