Thursday, July 29, 2004

The Fisher King

Bobby Fischer fights deportation from Japan

Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has asked to be released from custody at a Tokyo detention center while he appeals against a Japanese move to deport him, a Canadian advising Fischer said yesterday.

Fischer, 61, wanted by Washington for defying sanctions by playing a match in Yugoslavia in 1992, was detained at Tokyo's Narita airport on July 15 when he tried to leave for the Philippines on a passport U.S. officials have said was invalid. ...

Fischer, one of the great eccentrics of the chess world, has been wanted for arrest by the United States since 1992 when he played a match against old rival Boris Spassky - and won - in Yugoslavia despite U.S. economic sanctions.

My roommate told me Fischer has made some pretty, ahem, bold statements about 9/11 and, of all things, "the Jews." I had no idea Fischer was such a nutjob (his mom was Jewish), but I guess it goes with being a mega-genius. It might also have to do with still being called Bobby at the age of 61. (No offence to any Bobby readers out there; I just think it's the lil' kid of an otherwise solid cluster of names.)

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