Ex-rival stands up for Fischer

TOKYO (Reuters) - Boris Spassky, an old rival of former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, has called on Washington to show mercy for Fischer, who is wanted by the United States for defying its sanctions, Fischer's lawyer says.

Fischer, one of the chess world's great eccentrics, was detained at Tokyo's Narita airport last month, when he tried to leave for Manila on a passport U.S. officials say was invalid.

The chess grandmaster has been wanted in the United States since 1992, when he violated U.S. economic sanctions by going to Yugoslavia, where he won $3 million for beating Spassky in a chess match.

In a letter purportedly written by Spassky and made available to the media by Masako Suzuki, a lawyer working on Fischer's case, Spassky called on U.S. President George W. Bush to be lenient towards Fischer, whom he described as a "tragic personality."

"I would not like to defend or justify Bobby Fischer. He is what he is," the letter said. "I am asking only for one thing. For mercy, charity."

The letter noted that Spassky and Fischer had "committed the same crime," by playing the match in Yugoslavia and added: "Put sanctions against me also. Arrest me. And put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer. And give us a chess set."

Suzuki and other Fischer supporters were not immediately available for comment.

Fischer beat Spassky, then of the Soviet Union and now a resident of France, to become world chess champion in 1972 in a victory touted as a Cold War propaganda coup for the United States.

He lost the title three years later after his conditions for a match against Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union, were rejected by chess officials and Karpov became champion by default.

Japanese immigration authorities on Tuesday moved Fischer from a detention centre at Narita airport to a larger facility some 50 km (31 miles) northeast of Tokyo, a move that Suzuki said may signal that his stay in Japan could be prolonged.

No reason was disclosed for the transfer, but Suzuki said that, considering past cases, it was likely that Fischer would not be immediately deported but would be detained there for some time.

Fischer appealed against deportation last month but this was rejected by Japanese immigration officials. He has filed a second appeal to Justice Minister Daizo Nozawa.

In his bid to avoid deportation to the United States, Fischer also plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship and has filed for refugee status in Japan, and is also seeking other countries willing to let him stay, Suzuki said.

Fischer vanished after the 1992 match in Yugoslavia but resurfaced after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States to give an interview to a Philippine radio station in which he praised the strikes and said he wanted to see America "wiped out."

Fischer's supporters say he renewed his passport in 1997 and never received a letter issued in December 2003 revoking it. U.S. State Department officials in Washington have said it took years for the legal process to catch up to him.

Fischer, whose mother was Jewish, has also stirred controversy with anti-Semitic remarks.