A Japanese court on Monday convicted two members of the environmental group Greenpeace of stealing whale meat they claim was intended for illegal consumption, giving each suspended jail terms.

The Aomori District Court found the two Greenpeace members guilty of stealing 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of whale meat from a delivery service company warehouse in April 2008. The meat came from whales killed during Japan's controversial government-backed research hunts.

Junichi Sato, 33, and Toru Suzuki, 43, were sentenced to one year in prison for theft and trespassing, but the sentence was suspended and they will not serve jail time, Greenpeace and court officials said.

The two pleaded not guilty to the theft charge but acknowledged trespassing, saying they wanted to highlight the murky operations of research whaling and to file a criminal complaint with the authorities.

Japan hunts whales along its coastal waters and in the Antarctic under the research exemption to the 1986 ban on whaling by the International Whaling Commission. Critics say the scientific hunts are a cover for commercial whaling because the meat gleaned from the killed whales mostly ends up in restaurants, stores and school lunches.

In May 2008, Greenpeace presented the stolen meat to authorities, alleging that whalers in the hunts _ which are financed with taxpayer money _ siphon off the annual catch to sell or for their private use.

Monday's ruling was "wholly disproportionate result given they acted in the public interest to save whales," Greenpeace Japan said in a message on Twitter.