TOKYO : A Japanese court decided on Sunday to keep two Greenpeace members in custody for stealing whale meat in a bid to uncover corruption in Japan's whaling programme, the environmental group said.

The Aomori District Court made the decision after prosecutors requested a 10-day extension of a detention period for Junichi Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, Greenpeace said, quoting court officials.

Police arrested the two on Friday on suspicion of stealing whale meat in April.

Greenpeace said it intercepted one box of meat and handed it to prosecutors in Tokyo as evidence, seeking action against 12 crew members on the whaling ship.

The group was aiming to prove that whalers on the taxpayer-backed hunt had sold whale meat on the black market.

Prosecutors opted not to pursue the allegations by Greenpeace against the crew members.

Greenpeace said its lawyers had appealed Sunday's court decision, adding that it has already begun a worldwide signature campaign to petition Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda for an immediate release of the two activists.

"Greenpeace Japan will continue pursuing investigations into the research whaling case and seek an immediate release of the two members who were unjustly arrested," Greenpeace Japan executive director Jun Hoshikawa said.

Greenpeace, along with most Western countries, is strongly opposed to Japan's whaling programme, which kills about 1,000 of the ocean giants a year.

The Japanese government, which says whaling is part of the culture, carries out the hunt using a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium that allows "lethal research" on whales.

The arrests come just ahead of an annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the Chilean capital Santiago.

- AFP /ls