Chess legend wins temporary lifeline in deportation case

Troubled former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has won a temporary reprieve from deportation to the US by Japan.

Fischer is wanted by the US for breaking international sanctions against Yugoslavia in 1992.

Japan’s justice minister Daizo Nozawa rejected Fischer’s application for political asylum and issued an order to deport him, but the chess legend’s lawyers immediately sued to block the order.

“It should take a little while,” immigration office spokesman Itsuo Noto said about the deportation.

Fischer was detained over immigration offences on July 13 after allegedly trying to board a plane for the Philippines with an invalid US passport. He is being held at the Ushiku detention centre north-east of Tokyo.

He claims the charges against him are politically motivated and has tried a number of steps to thwart his deportation, such as saying he would renounce his US citizenship and getting engaged to a Japanese woman, and has demanded to meet US embassy officials.

The US State Department said a meeting was being arranged.

“A consular officer will visit Mr Fischer soon” in detention, US State Department Deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said in Washington.

But it was not clear how effective those steps would be in heading off his deportation, and US officials suggested they would pursue a case against Fischer even if he renounced his American citizenship.

“Nationality does not affect a federal warrant,” said a US official in Tokyo.

Fischer’s legal team immediately filed a lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court last night, seeking to halt his deportation, and said it should ensure that Fischer stayed in Japan while the case was considered by a judge, which typically takes a month.

A subsequent lawsuit could take up to a year, it said.

Fischer rose to chess stardom by defeating Boris Spassky, formerly of the Soviet Union, in a series of games in 1972 to claim the world championship.

The chess great, however, became increasingly erratic and reclusive after the Spassky match and lost his title as world champion in 1978.

In a 1992 rematch against Spassky, Fischer won and collected more than €2.7m in prize money, breaking United Nations sanctions by attending the match held in the former Yugoslavia.