Chess champ could face tax evasion charges

American chess champion Bobby Fischer could be deported to the United States to face tax evasion charges there, it was reported today.

The report by the Japanese national Mainichi newspaper could signal more trouble for Fischer as he battles a separate Japanese deportation order to the United States and tries to win free passage to Iceland.

Fischer, 61, has been held by Japanese immigration authorities since being arrested there in July while trying to board a plane to the Philippines allegedly using an invalid US passport.

Washington has sought Fischer, who became world chess champion in his 1972 match in Iceland against Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, on charges of violating international sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing chess there in 1992.

Fischer, who wants to renounce his US citizenship, has denounced the US deportation order as politically motivated.

US prosecutors are now building a case against Fischer for alleged tax evasion, the Mainichi said, citing an unidentified official at the US bankruptcy court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The US Internal Revenue Service is expected to seek a grand jury indictment against Fischer and charge him with five counts of tax evasion, the newspaper said. The grand jury is set to start April 5.

If Fischer is indicted, Japan would be obligated to send him to the United States under a bilateral extradition treaty.

John Bosnitch, a spokesman for Fischer in Tokyo, said he had seen the report but that Fischer hadn’t received formal notification from US officials.

The news came as Fischer was expected to obtain a special passport for foreigners from Iceland.

Fischer’s lawyer will formally request the travel document tomorrow at the Icelandic Embassy in Tokyo and officials are likely to hand it over immediately, Bosnitch said.

The passport, which is already at the Icelandic Embassy, would give Fischer special permission to travel to 15 Western European countries.

But Fischer must first win approval to go from Japan, which has issued a deportation order to send him to the United States.

He has filed a lawsuit in a Japanese court to contest the order. Japanese authorities say they have no immediate plan to approve Fischer’s departure for Iceland.

Once Fischer has the passport, “he has everything he needs to leave Japan” for Iceland’s capital, Bosnitch said.

“We have an open-ended airplane ticket for Reykjavik. We have a signed authorised request for Bobby to go. We have Bobby’s consent to drop his court case if the request to go is approved by Japan.”

Iceland also has an extradition treaty with the United States.

Fischer has baffled many with his erratic and reclusive behaviour.

He disappeared from the limelight for years before the 1992 rematch. In recent years, he has emerged from silence in radio broadcasts and on his web page to express anti-Semitic views and rail against the United States.