WILLACY: Once he roared around racetracks as a professional rider, now he's an environmental action man but his daredevil dissidence could cost him his freedom.

TORU SUZUKI: I think on a day like today, when the weather is great and I can go anywhere I like on my motorcycle it's the best type of freedom. I'm enjoying it to the full. I can't forgive the people who want to take my freedom away.

WILLACY: There's a saying in Japan that the nail that sticks out should be hammered back in. In this country, where conformity is a national duty, Toru Suzuki is a protruding nail and the way to beat him back in to line - a possible ten-year prison term.

MAIKO SUZUKI: Every time when he raced I farewelled him feeling he might not come back. But this time, because these decisions are made by powers we cannot control, my anxiety is worse and on a different level.

WILLACY: This is Toru Suzuki's partner in crime. Junichi Sato is the other half of the so-called 'Tokyo Two'. They're Japanese Greenpeace activists who say they've exposed deep-seated corruption inside their country's highly controversial scientific whaling program.

JUNICHI SATO: It's almost two years since I got arrested and now it's coming to the end. I think it's worth it because we could put spotlights on the corruption of the whaling industry, which nobody had ever done.

WILLACY: Junichi Sato is returning to the scene of the alleged crime. He's travelling to Aomori, in northern Japan, where the trial of the Tokyo Two is wrapping up. Sato and Suzuki are getting ready for another day in court. They were hoping this might have been the ordeal for those they were trying to expose. After all they claim they found proof of an illegal smuggling racket worth hundreds of thousands, possibly millions. But in an incredible twist, they've ended up in the dock accused of theft and trespass.

JUNICHI SATO: Well it's obvious this was a politically motivated arrest.

WILLACY: Under their bail conditions, Sato and Suzuki can only meet each other in the presence of their lawyers. Tonight they are meeting their legal team to plot the final day of cross-examination when the Tokyo Two will come face to face with the crewmember whose whale meat they took.

JUNICHI SATO: Well of course the reason of us fighting in this case was to avoid a jail sentence, but at the same time I'm really keen to expose the real corruption of the whaling industry.

WILLACY: The Tokyo Two's journey started with this man, a former crewmember onboard Japan's flagship whaling vessel the Nisshin Maru. In a highly sensitive and secretive industry, he blew the whistle on crew mates who he says were stealing whale meat from the scientific whaling programme. The former crewman calls himself Kujira-san or Mr Whale. Foreign Correspondent agreed to hide his identity.

KUJIRA-SAN: If they find out I'm the whistleblower they'll kill me for sure.

WILLACY: Kujira-san was a butcher onboard whaling ships. He knew the best cuts and he says he watched as fellow crewmen helped themselves.

KUJIRA-SAN: One crewmember would take 500 to 600 kilograms as if it's normal. That's a little too much to eat at home. Some people give it to their neighbours - others are obviously selling it. I heard a story that one crewman built a house from selling whale meat.

WILLACY: Foreign Correspondent went to great lengths to corroborate this whistle blower's claims. We travelled across Japan to meet another veteran whaler prepared to break ranks. This man, who we'll call T-san, served in the whaling fleet for thirty five years. He says the corruption started at the very top of Japan's scientific whaling program.

T-SAN: Every day I saw boxes with the names of the staff of the Institute of Cetacean Research written on them. I looked inside them and I found meat.

WILLACY: Even though he actually agrees with Japan's whaling program, T-San testified for the defence in the Tokyo Two trial because he believes the industry needs to be cleaned up if it's to survive. He told the judges that officials from the Institute of Cetacean Research would each take at least fifteen kilograms of the best cuts of whale.

T-SAN: It was red meat from the tail - it's where it moves the most. It's the highest quality. It's a bad thing. The number of boxes they took home was tremendous. I asked myself why they are doing such a thing. I don't think management can restrain them anymore.

WILLACY: Armed with this explosive information from the whistleblowers, Toru Suzuki and Junichi Sato followed the trail all the way to northern Japan.

JUNICHI SATO: So we started following the boxes off-loaded from the Nisshin Maru to the house of the crewmembers.

WILLACY: They tracked one box, marked as containing cardboard, to a courier depot. Then they made their move.

TORU SUZUKI: I found the box, and really felt I couldn't turn a blind eye to it so I secured it as evidence.

JUNICHI SATO: When we opened it up it was 23.5 kilo of whale meat and that whale meat was called unesu which is quite popular, or which is quite, how do you say? ... precious. After seeing the contents itself we thought wow this is quite a bit scandal, we need to expose it in a way that public can see it and that's why we decided to keep the box.

WILLACY: Greenpeace estimates the value of the meat inside the box at as much as three and a half thousand dollars, and it was just one of more than ninety boxes taken by the crew. After showing the whale meat to the media, Sato and Suzuki handed it over to prosecutors who promised to investigate.

JUNICHI SATO: And when we started talking the prosecutor was quite interested and quite enthusiastic to uncover this corrupted program so I thought okay we did the right thing and this guy is quite interested so I thought you know, that the result would be also good.

WILLACY: But the result wasn't good for you was it?

JUNICHI SATO: No, not at all. In fact they dropped the case against those crewmembers but on the same day Toru and myself was arrested.

WILLACY: The tables had turned dramatically. The campaigners were now accused criminals.

So how did you feel when not only were you arrested but you later discovered that the prosectors had dropped any investigation against the crewmembers?

JUNICHI SATO: Well I was furious for that. I was shocked but I couldn't express that anger to the outside.

TORU SUZUKI: Seventy-five policemen were mobilised, just to arrest two activists. I thought it was really outrageous.

WILLACY: For almost a month Suzuki and Sato were held incommunicado behind the closed doors of the justice system.

TORU SUZUKI: I was questioned every day for about ten hours.

WILLACY: How long were you held for?

TORU SUZUKI: 26 days.

JUNICHI SATO: Basically I mean I was in a small room without any windows, attached to the, you know, chair.

WILLACY: Tied to the chair?

JUNICHI SATO: Tied to the chair.... and only one police officer and myself in a small room without any recordings, without any lawyers present.

WILLACY: During the trial, the Fisheries Agency said it was perfectly legal for crewmembers to take home souvenirs of whale meat for their private use, but that wasn't what they had said earlier when Sato had rung the agency to check the official policy.

TORU SUZUKI: [On phone] I've heard a story that crew members took home whale meat as a souvenir during the time of commercial whaling but such a thing doesn't happen now with research whaling, right?

FISHERIES AGENCY: No, the distribution is extremely limited.

TORU SUZUKI: I thought so...because you're dealing with so-called publicly owned whale meat.

FISHERIES AGENCY: Yes it is... yes it is.

WILLACY: By the time of the trial, somehow the agency had changed its story and now the activists had become the supposed thieves. Outside Japan many applaud the Tokyo Two for taking on Japan's powerful whaling interests, but at home it's a different story.

SHUHEI NICHMURA: [Protestor] Western white people also harvest resources from the sea in the same way as us - but they accuse Japanese people of being barbarians. This is racial discrimination against the Japanese people!

WILLACY: What Shuhei Nishimura and his loyal band of protestors lack in numbers, they make up for in noise.

SHUHEI NICHMURA: Apologise to the Japanese people! Apologise! Apologise!

WILLACY: They argue that eating whale is part of Japanese culture. To be anti whaling is to be anti Japan.

What should happen to those activists, the Japanese Greenpeace guys?

SHUHEI NICHMURA: They should be strictly punished in accordance with Japanese law. Japan is a constitutional nation and I want them to get the death penalty.

JUNICHI SATO: Well it doesn't surprise me because that's what we get from phone calls.... is just people saying that you have to go to jail now or you die or something like that.

TORU SUZUKI: The future of this country where our children will live must be a society where citizens can really raise their voices. I did it with those feelings - so when I was called a traitor I thought, no - you're the traitor.

WILLACY: For the whalers' point of view we travel to the former whaling town of Muroto. At seventy-eight, Tomohisa Nagaoka is an old man of the sea and like Hemingway's salt-soaked protagonist, he's battled some giants of the deep.

TOMOHISA NAGAOKA: During my time as a harpooner I caught about four thousand whales. When I joined the company we felt they were resources for Japanese to get protein and we did not feel sad about hunting whales. We felt they were natural gifts from God and I thought our hunting could help Japanese people.

WILLACY: He takes us to a nearby whaling museum he helped establish.

TOMOHISA NAGAOKA: This is the same type of whale gun that I used most of the time. If the whale was speedy I aimed at the upper part of its head. If it was slow I aimed straight. Bang! I am aiming at your heart.

WILLACY: While he now runs a whale watching business, the thrill of the hunt still charges through the veins of this old harpooner.

TOMOHISA NAGAOKA: I still have a young feeling in my heart and I want to do it once more. Especially when I could hit a cunning whale I felt it was a great job, as a man.

WILLACY: And he just doesn't get what Greenpeace and the Tokyo Two were trying to do.

TOMOHISA NAGAOKA: We do not understand their ideas. We wondered why they did such a thing. It is beyond our imagination. I think the government should take firm action against them.

WILLACY: And that's pretty much how most Japanese feel - if they're even aware of the trial which hasn't had much publicity here. In a country of 128 million, Greenpeace Japan has just five thousand members.

MASAYUKI KOMATSU: I think it's a minor issue. I do not think this is worth making a comment to my judgement. I think even for the Greenpeace it's a waste of time.

WILLACY: For years Masayuki Komatsu was the public face of Japan's whaling policy. He gained worldwide notoriety in 2001 after he revealed to Foreign Correspondent his rather blunt view of Minke whales.

MASAYUKI KOMATSU: [Archive footage 2001] Yeah I believe that, you know, minke whale is you know cockroach in the oceans.

REPORTER: Why do you call the minke whale a cockroach of the ocean?

MASAYUKI KOMATSU: Well because there are too many and the speed of you know swimming is so quick.

WILLACY: But he thinks the case of the Tokyo Two is a fuss about nothing.

So it's not illegal under Japanese law or international whaling commission guidelines to take home gifts of whale meat from research vessels?

MASAYUKI KOMATSU: I think it is perfectly okay, acceptable. Some small amount of whale meat as a customary, as is the case of, you know any fishing vessels here in Japan, is divided with the crews as a gift for the family and their friends.

WILLACY: Decades after leaving his village in northern Japan, Masayuki Komatsu's come home for a visit and in this tiny fishing community he's feted like a hero.

VILLAGER: I often see your face on TV.

MASAYUKI KOMATSU: Yes... this is Australian TV.

WILLACY: This community once made big money crewing the Antarctic whaling vessels. Those days have long gone.

So what do you say to your critics, groups like Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, the Australian and New Zealand governments who say Antarctic scientific whaling is a joke, it's a cover for commercial whaling?

MASAYUKI KOMATSU: I think there is definitely you know a misunderstanding. Japan, you know, have been providing scientific data. The problem is that they don't want to use it, they don't want to appreciate it. I think it's a shame.

WILLACY: For the Tokyo Two the day of judgement is approaching with a verdict expected later this month. Japanese authorities insist the trial of the Tokyo Two is a simple open and shut case of theft, but in fact this trial is so sensitive no one here wants to even talk about it. Foreign Correspondent approached the Japanese fisheries agency, its scientific whaling body - The Institute of Cetacean Research - and members of the ruling democratic party of Japan for comment, no one would be interviewed. And when it comes to releasing information relevant to this case, prosecutors are just as reluctant and not at all transparent. These are documents requested by the defence and as you can see, it's a very different interpretation of freedom of information.

These blacked out documents are a fitting symbol of the dark fate, which could await these two activists. In Japan's district court system, once charged a conviction is almost certain. A staggering 99% of people charged are found guilty.

JUNICHI SATO: If you are arrested and shown on the TV then the people's notion about this person is.... okay this person is guilty, a criminal and that's what I suffered from.

WILLACY: Junichi Sato and his wife have a four year old son and they worry how he will be affected if Sato is jailed.

JUNICHI SATO: I really would like them to understand what I did was not for taking somebody's property for my personal gain. I did it for the benefit of society and if they understand clearly and I think they can support it.

WILLACY: Does your wife understand that?

JUNICHI SATO: She was you know very normal Japanese person.... not having a background of an activist it's quite hard to accept that.

WILLACY: Toru Suzuki and his wife have two children to worry about. Their four year old daughter Nina fears her father will once again be taken away.

TORU SUZUKI: I thought she was becoming relaxed again, but when I took a photo of her, her eyes weren't smiling. Her eyes weren't smiling in any photos. I was very shocked.

WILLACY: Do you wish that Toro had never ever taken this whale meat?

MAIKO SUZUKI: I believe in what he does and what he did. I send him off believing in him so I don't have those feelings.

WILLACY: Even though that could have a great personal cost to your family?

MAIKO SUZUKI: Yes, I do.

WILLACY: Judges will rule who's right - whether the Tokyo Two are a couple of troublemakers who deserve prison, or if they're crusaders for freedom of speech trying to expose corruption. But for Toru Suzuki - that protruding nail in the side of the Japanese establishment - he says he's prepared to take any blow but he'll never be beaten down.

TORU SUZUKI: I live my life thinking our role is to spend every day believing we really did the right thing from the beginning.