In his litigation, Greenpeace’s lawyer claimed that the purpose of the operations had been solely to demonstrate , and that
they had not caused any hindrance to the hunt. In the wealth of press releases from Greenpeace published during the
campaign it says, amongst other things, The activists tried to remove the harpoon onboard the Senet ... This is the last
whale the Senet will kill if we have anything to do with it, said Greenpeace campaigner, Stephan Flothman ... The MV
Solo intercepted and halted a Norwegian whaler from killing two whales ... We are arrested today for saving two whales,
said Greenpeace campaigner Geert Drieman. Greenpeace has been obstructing Norwegian whaling efforts in the North Sea
for the past three weeks... The whaling vessel Senet tried to resume hunting this morning but was prevented from killing
a minke whale by the MV Solo ...
Die in Peace
New Versions
In their litigation, Greenpeace acknowledge having cut the harpoon line between a harpooned whale and the whaler. But this
is said to have been an individual action by one of the demonstrators , and not in accordance with the principles by which
Greenpeace carry out their demonstrations. Furthermore, they write that the whale swam away and was probably not
seriously wounded. A Greenpeace press release dated July 7th, however, states that , When the Greenpeace activists
approached the whaler, they saw the dying minke whale with a harpoon in its side. A whaler was shooting at the stricken
whale with a rifle to finish the kill ... The whale was close to death by the time Greenpeace arrived, and was cut free by
the activists to die in peace. The activists were determined that the whalers should not profit from this whale’s death. This
version is corroborated by what Eva Egeberg, the inspector on board the Senet, has written in her report to the Norwegian
authorities. She declares that the whale was mortally wounded and would not survive long.
The Norwegian media launched strong criticism of the fact that Greenpeace had prolonged the whale’s suffering by their
actions. But, on second thoughts, the Greenpeace activists realised that their account of the incident in their press release
was not correct. A new version of the story emerged in several interviews. Campaign leader Paul Horsman told the
Norwegian daily, the VG, (The whale) was only slightly wounded. It had been harpooned in one of its fins. Norwegian
Greenpeace spokeswoman, Karin Glatz Brubakk told TV2 Norway, ... the whale was OK. It wasn’t too good because it
had been shot at, but it was far from mortally wounded. Finally, at a press conference in Hamburg, summing up the events
in the North Sea the German campaign leader, Stephan Flothman, stated that the whale had been wounded, but that they did
not know how seriously.