Wayward chess genius loses deportation appeal
Japanese immigration officials have rejected former world chess champion Bobby Fischer’s appeal against their decision to deport him for attempting to travel on an invalid US passport.
The decision was made after a two-day hearing, according to John Bosnitch, a Canadian journalist who acted as an adviser to Fischer during the proceedings.
Fischer, who considers his detention “a kidnapping,” can appeal again, Bosnitch said.
Fischer was arrested two weeks ago after trying to board a flight at the international airport in Narita, just outside Tokyo, for allegedly travelling with a revoked passport. Fischer is wanted in the United States for playing a chess match in the former Yugoslavia in 1992 in defiance of international sanctions.
Bosnitch said Fischer believes he has been “seized.”
“He considers the entire ordeal to date to be nothing more than a kidnapping, a completely illegal procedure on both the American side and the Japanese side,” Bosnitch said.
“He has worked to keep himself aloof from that process and from dignifying that process.”
Bosnitch said that Fischer claimed during the hearing to have been physically mistreated.
“He hasn’t seen the sun since the day he was seized,” Bosnitch said. “He was bruised on his face, you could see welts in his arm. He is a 61-year-old man, and he claims to have been assaulted twice. He has the bruises and the cuts to prove it.”
Fischer rocketed to fame in the United States at the height of the Cold War when he defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in a series of games in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1972.
His genius for chess was quickly overshadowed by his eccentric behaviour.
