Search:



The Web

Rediff










Home > Sports > Chess > Reuters > Report

Fischer renouncing U.S. citizenship

August 06, 2004 17:29 IST

Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted by Washington for defying sanctions on Yugoslavia, plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship, a lawyer working his appeal against deportation from Japan said on Friday.

Bobby FischerFischer, one of the chess world's great eccentrics, was detained at Tokyo's Narita airport last month when he tried to leave for Manila on a passport U.S. officials say was invalid.

Japanese immigration officials rejected Fischer's initial appeal against deportation and his lawyer, Masako Suzuki, has filed a second plea to Justice Minister Daizo Nozawa.

In a handwritten note made available to the media, Fischer said the U.S. government and "U.S.-controlled Japanese government, working in collusion and in a criminal conspiracy, have illegally confiscated and illegally physically destroyed my perfectly valid in every way U.S. passport #27792702.

"As a result of the above-stated criminal act, as well as innumerable other vicious crimes against me by the U.S. government, I no longer wish to be an American citizen," said the letter, copies of which were made available to the media.

Suzuki told a news conference that Fischer, 61, would likely become a stateless person for some period of time and that his supporters would try to have the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) register him as a refugee.

The renunciation of his U.S. citizenship does not take effect until he has met a U.S. consular official and conveyed his intent in person, she said.

Also Read


Fischer seeks third country refuges

Fischer applies for asylum in Japan

Fischer detained in Japan


Fischer, who arrived in Japan in April, has been wanted in the United States since 1992 when he violated U.S. economic sanctions by winning $3 million for beating old rival Boris Spassky in a match in Yugoslavia.

The elusive chessmaster then vanished, only to resurface after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States to give an interview to Philippine radio in which he praised the strikes and said he wanted to see America "wiped out".

Fischer has filed for refugee status in Japan and is also in contact with other countries that might accept him, according to John Bosnitch, a Tokyo-based Canadian journalist and communications consultant who has been advising him.

Japan accepts only political refugees. Fischer's supporters in Japan say he is being persecuted by the United States.

Fischer's supporters say he renewed his passport in 1997 and never received a letter issued in December 2003 revoking it.

U.S. State Department officials in Washington have said it took years for the legal process to catch up with Fischer.

Fischer became world chess champion in 1972 when he beat Spassky of the Soviet Union in a victory seen as a Cold War propaganda coup for the United States.

The title was taken from him three years later after his conditions for a match against Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union, were rejected by chess officials.

Karpov became champion by default.



Article Tools
Email this article
Top emailed links
Print this article
Write us a letter
Discuss this article



Related Stories


Fischer files for refugee status

Fischer for asylum in Japan

Fischer ponders next legal move









More Chess reports

© Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.











Copyright © 2004 rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved.