Japan justice minister agrees to consider sending
Fischer to Iceland
TOKYO : Japanese Justice Minister Chieko Nohno agreed to consider
fugitive US chess legend Bobby Fischer's plea to go to Iceland to avoid
deportation and potential jail in the United States.
Fischer and his lawyers last week asked Japanese authorities to send him
to Iceland, which has offered the maverick chess master residency three
decades after he played his most famous match there.
"Generally speaking, the destination of his deportation will be the
United States but we will consider his wishes and whether he has a
country willing to accept him as we decide where to deport him," Nohno
told reporters.
Japanese authorities earlier said that people are deported to their
countries of origin barring exceptional circumstances, such as their
homelands being at war.
Fischer, 61, has been detained in Japan since July when he tried to fly
out of the country on his revoked US passport.
Fischer faces up to 10 years in prison in the United States for playing
a chess match in Yugoslavia in 1992 in defiance of US sanctions against
Belgrade during the Balkan wars.
The game was a rematch against Boris Spassky, then a Soviet citizen,
whom Fischer dethroned of his grand master title in 1972 in Iceland at
the height of the Cold War.
Fischer's American hero status was short-lived as his behavior grew
increasingly eccentric.
The chess genius went on radio in the Philippines on September 11, 2001
to hail the terrorist attacks against his country as "wonderful news"
and launch a tirade against Americans and Jews.
Fischer's supporters say he is being singled out because of his
political views and that the United States is pressuring Iceland to
withdraw its offer of residency made earlier this month.
Deportation would bar Fischer from returning to Japan for at least five
years.
In detention he became engaged to Miyoko Watai, a Japanese heading the
Japan Chess Association, although Japanese authorities are still
studying their marriage application.
Bobby Fischer