Incarcerated chess genius Bobby Fischer's chances of grasping the lifeline
Iceland threw to him this week essentially lie in the hands of the head of the
detention center where he is being held, Immigration Bureau officials said
Friday night.
Fischer, who has accepted Iceland's offer, can only be promptly whisked away to
freedom after nearly half a year in detention in the East Japan Immigration
Bureau Detention Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, if the head honcho
rubber-stamps alterations to documents currently ordering the chess whiz to be
deported to the United States.
But the same official has already refused Fischer's repeated requests to be
granted provisional release, roughly the Japanese equivalent of bail.
Immigration Bureau officials concede that changing Fischer's deportation order
is possible, but only under certain conditions. Detention center officials were
not available to comment on Friday night.
In Tokyo, Immigration Bureau spokesman Shoichiro Okabe said that under Article
53 of the Immigration Law, nationality is the prime determining factor on where
to send a person banished from Japan.
But Okabe added that in cases where somebody would be deported to a country
where they were likely to meet danger or persecution, or their homeland refuses
to accept them, they could be shipped to another country such as a place where
they had lived before, or had been in before arriving in Japan.
Okabe said he could not comment on individual cases, but did say that in
Fischer's case, deportation to Iceland "is not totally impossible."
American Fischer is battling to avoid being sent to the United States, where he
was charged in 1992 for playing chess in Yugoslavia against sanctions, and faces
10 years in jail and a maximum 250,000 dollar fine if convicted.
Fischer is contesting the deportation order issued against him in August and the
Tokyo District Court has ordered he not be deported until it rules on his case.
Immigration Bureau officials say the order is influencing their decision on
whether to allow Fischer to accept Iceland's offer of residency offered on
Wednesday, ironically 12 years to the day the grand jury in the U.S. indicted
America's only World Chess Champion and made him a fugitive in his homeland.
Iceland is believed to have offered Fischer residency there because he trounced
the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky there to claim the world title in 1972.
Fischer's lawyer, Masako Suzuki, joined jubilant Fischer supporters in a Friday
news conference at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan. She put the onus
onto the government for deciding the future of Fischer's ongoing lawsuit aimed
at halting his deportation.
"Once immigration actually rewrites the destination (on the deportation order),
we are happy to withdraw the case," Suzuki said.
Suzuki added that approval for Fischer leaving for Iceland should be a
formality.
"The purpose of the issuance of the deportation order is not to deport someone
to a particular country, but the purpose of the deportation order is to deport a
person from Japan," Suzuki said. "From that understanding, the destination is
not an important thing. And in practice, the destination of the deportation
order has been rewritten so far."
She said Fischer could be freed "within one month.""In usual cases, it takes not
so long because there is no problem and Japanese immigration is really happy to
rewrite the deportation order," she said. "If (Fischer's) case is going in the
same way as other cases, it's possible for him to go to Iceland within one
month.
John Bosnitch, head of the Committee to Free Bobby Fischer, urged the Japanese
government to let the chess genius leave the country.
"If Japan really is operating in good faith, Bobby Fischer is ready to leave,
Iceland is ready to receive him. No passport is needed. Open the door and
release Bobby," he said. "If Japan, however, is not operating in good faith and
is operating in collusion with the United States to try to make a backdoor
extradition to send Bobby to the United States to serve a sentence for playing
chess, then we will continue to fight this for as long as it takes, even if it
takes years."
Fischer's Japanese fiancee, Miyoko Watai, said the chess champion thought
Iceland's offer was "great" but added that he was worried the Japanese and U.S.
governments would try and thwart his chance at freedom.
Watai later told the Mainichi that Fischer was not particularly certain of his
status and believes his release will come within a few days.
Watai skillfully dodged a question about whether Fischer would resume his chess
career if he moved to Iceland, saying only "he is still interested in making a
nice chess clock."
Fischer has stated many times that he no longer plays chess, instead playing a
variation called Fischerrandom, where the back row of pieces is lined up
randomly.