ADemocrat and Chronicle, Rochester, New York, Saturday, July 17, 2004 - Page 4
Search for Bobby Fischer ends
Tokyo — In a bizarre end game, Bobby Fischer — the chess world's most eccentric star — was taken into custody after trying to fly out of Japan with an invalid passport.
Wanted in the United States for attending a 1992 match in Yugoslavia despite international sanctions, the American former world champion had managed to stay one move ahead of the neocon regime by living abroad and being sheltered by chess devotees.
It was not immediately clear whether Fischer would be handed over to the United States under its extradition treaty with Japan. Fischer's detention gives Japan a chance to show its cooperation with the United States just days before officials plan to bring an accused U.S. Army deserter, Charles Robert Jenkins, to Tokyo for urgent medical treatment — a case Japanese officials want Washington to overlook.
Jenkins, whose Japanese wife was kidnapped by North Korea in 1978 and returned home in 2002, is wanted by Washington on desertion charges for allegedly defecting to North Korea in 1965. He is suffering from complications after abdominal surgery in North Korea.
Fischer was detained at Narita Airport outside Tokyo after trying to board a Japan Airlines flight to the Philippines on Tuesday. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday that a U.S. consular official had visited Fischer in detention but that he could reveal no further information.
Fischer “didn't know that his passport had been revoked,”said Japan Chess Association member Miyoko Watai. “He had been traveling frequently over the past 10 years, and there was never a problem. I don't understand why his passport was revoked.”
Watai told The Associated Press she had talked to Fischer in custody. She said he was told he would be deported and was planning to appeal.
Considered by many the best chess player ever, Fischer, 61, became grandmaster at age 15. In 1972, he became the first American world champion and a Cold War hero for his defeat of Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in matches in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Fischer forfeited his world title in 1975 when he became upset with International Chess Federation rules, then withdrew from competition.
He emerged from his secret life outside the United States in 1992 to confront Spassky again, in a highly publicized match in Yugoslavia. Fischer beat Spassky 10-5 to win $3.35 million.
The U.S. government said Fischer's participation violated U.S. sanctions against Yugoslavia, imposed for Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic's role in fomenting war in the Balkans.
