Bobby Fischer vows to take revenge for being put in slammer |
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Incarcerated chess genius Bobby Fischer has sworn -- literally and
figuratively -- to take revenge on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S.
President George W. Bush for being detained in a Japanese cell for months.
"You are going to pay for this and you're going to pay for your crimes in Iraq,
too," Fischer said in an interview given from his cell on Oct. 2 to a Philippine
radio station and posted on the Internet on Thursday night. Fischer's attack on
the prime minister also contained a profanity not suitable for print.
Fischer is currently being detained at the East Japan Immigration Bureau
Detention Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, while he fights against a
deportation order issued Aug. 24. The Tokyo District Court granted an injunction
against the execution of the order on Sept. 8.
Fischer, who sparked a world chess boom and became a U.S. hero when he defeated
then Soviet Boris Spassky to win the World Chess Championship in 1972, was
arrested July 13 at Narita Airport for traveling on a passport the U.S.
government says it had revoked months earlier.
Fischer said that he had been told his arrest came about through a personal deal
between Koizumi or Bush, though he hastened to add that he did not know whether
this was true.
Fischer had been wanted in the U.S. since a 1992 grand jury indictment for
playing chess in Yugoslavia in alleged violation of sanctions placed on the
country at the time.
John Bosnitch, head of the Committee to Free Bobby Fischer, said the U.S.
Embassy in Tokyo wants to hold a hearing Friday for Fischer to appeal against
the revocation of his passport. Fischer and his supporters have refused to
accept the U.S. Embassy's demand, citing the lack of time they have been given
for consultation with a lawyer.
U.S. Embassy officials have refused to comment on the case, saying that they
need Fischer's permission to do so because it involves his privacy. (By Ryann
Connell, Mainichi Daily News, Oct. 14, 2004)