The two protesters, held aboard the Japanese whaler in Antarctic waters for two days, were handed over to an Australian customs vessel early Friday and later returned to their Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ship.

The pair was released to the Australian customs ship, the Oceanic Viking, after a direct handover between the Japanese ship and that of the conservationists proved impossible to negotiate.

Australian Benjamin Potts said the Japanese crew had tried to throw him overboard when he and fellow activist, Briton Giles Lane, 35, clambered onto the harpoon ship to protest Japan's whaling programme during a high seas chase.

"Yeah they picked me up, two guys picked me up by the shoulders, and the gunner, the guy that shoots the whales, picked my legs up and they attempted to tip me over," Potts told Fairfax Radio Network.

Kenji Masuda, an official of the whaling division at Japan's Fisheries Agency, brushed aside Potts' claims of mistreatment.

"This is just a unilateral claim by the activists who illegally intruded on to the ship. Please use your common sense in judging the incident," he said.

Potts, 28, pledged to resume action against the whalers.

"Well hopefully we'll continue with the chase, until such time as we have to head back," he also told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). "We'll continue to harass the Japanese fleet and prevent them from whaling."

Other Sea Shepherd activists also said the incident would not stop them.

"The moment we get them back on board we plan to resume what we came here to do, which is enforcing international conservation law," executive director Kim McCoy told ABC ahead of the pair's release.

Masuda, said it was "unbelievable to me that they still intend to intrude."

"We want them to stop their illegal intrusions," he said, adding that Japan has made no changes to its plans to kill some 1,000 of the giant mammals.

The Japanese whaling fleet is on its annual hunt in the icy Antarctic waters. Japan exploits a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling to kill the animals for what it calls scientific research, while admitting the meat from the hunt ends up on dinner plates.

The confrontation with Sea Shepherd had forced the Japanese fleet to suspend whaling for several days, but a spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said the Yushin Maru No. 2 would soon resume the hunt.

"The Yushin Maru is heading back towards the rest of the research vessels and yes, when it has the opportunity, it will continue with the programme," Glenn Inwood told AFP.

Greenpeace said its ship the Esperanza had noted the Yushin Maru No. 2 leaving the whaling grounds to rendezvous to the north with its mother ship, the Nisshin Maru, claiming this as a victory.

"We are very happy to see yet another of the fleet has left the whaling grounds, and we will do everything we can to ensure they do not return to hunting," Greenpeace campaigner Sakyo Noda said from the Esperanza.

Greenpeace described the mother ship as a "factory ship" where the whales are processed and said its campaigners had seen whales that appeared to be safe.

"We saw a number of whales surfacing and blowing in front of the catcher boat, and it's fantastic to know that they are still safe from the harpoon, because we have kept the factory ship out of action and out of the hunting grounds," said Greenpeace expedition leader Karli Thomas.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who was at the forefront of negotiations to end the standoff, said Friday Canberra strongly opposed Japan's whaling programme but was able to reach a deal on the men's release because it had a solid relationship with Tokyo.

He noted that the Oceanic Viking was already in the area on a mission to gain evidence of Japanese whaling for potential use in an international court challenge to end the hunt.

"Our ultimate objective is to get the Japanese to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean," he told reporters.

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