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Japan to Deport Chess Great Bobby Fischer
Tue Jul 20, 3:55 AM ET
By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer
NARITA, Japan - The Japanese government is preparing to deport American chess legend Bobby Fischer for staying in this country on an invalid passport, immigration officials said Tuesday.
Fischer was detained at the international airport in this city just outside of Tokyo last Tuesday after trying to board a flight for Manila, Philippines.
Immigration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Fischer, 61, has been held in their custody since, and said he was being processed for deportation. They refused to give further details, but said he could appeal their decision.
They said they did not know how long the deportation process would take.
A request by The Associated Press to meet with Fischer was denied by the airport immigration office, which cited "privacy concerns."
Fischer, believed by many to be the greatest chess player ever, has lived in seclusion and semi-secrecy for decades. It remains unclear where he considers home, but after he was taken into custody, friends here said he frequently traveled, staying for short durations in Japan, the Philippines, Germany and other countries.
He was believed to have been in Japan since about April.
Miyoko Watai, a member of the Japan Chess Association and a friend of Fischer, said he did not know that his passport had been revoked when he tried to leave Japan last week. She indicated that Fischer intended to appeal any effort to deport him.
Fischer became the U.S. chess champion at age 14, and a grandmaster at 15.
He became an icon in the United States when he defeated Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik, Iceland. The games, in 1972, came at the height of the Cold War and were hailed in the United States as a major victory.
His hero status quickly faded amid his increasingly eccentric behavior, however. He lost his title as world champion in 1978 and then largely vanished from the public eye.
Fischer is wanted in the United States for playing a rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992. Yugoslavia was under international sanctions at the time, and U.S. citizens were banned from doing business there. Fischer won the match, and more than $3 million in prize money.
Speaking to the San Jose Mercury News, Fischer's brother-in-law blasted the Bush administration Monday for Fischer's arrest in Japan, saying he is a pawn in a game of election-year politics.
"What Bobby's accused of is playing chess 12 years ago in Yugoslavia," said Russell Targ, a former Stanford laser physicist whose late wife was Fischer's sister. "It looks like it's a distraction from the war and the economy. Let's arrest Bobby Fischer. That will take people's minds off their troubles."
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