"TOKYO — A Japanese court on Wednesday convicted an anti-whaling activist from New Zealand of assault and obstructing Japan's whaling fleet in the Antarctic. But his sentence was suspended, meaning he will not be jailed.

Peter Bethune, a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, boarded a Japanese whaling ship from a Jet Ski in the southern Antarctic in February, and threw bottles of butyric acid at the whalers. One bottle cracked open and three crew members suffered minor burns, prosecutors charged. "

Hiroko Tabuchi reports for the New York Times July 7, 2010. [2]