Why does Bush hate Bobby Fischer? If I remember right, George Bush Sr. was President in 1992. How can someone get 10 years in prison for playing chess?
Incarcerated chess genius Bobby Fischer's chances of grasping the lifeline Iceland threw to him this week essentially lie in the hands of the head of the detention center where he is being held, Immigration Bureau officials said Friday night.
Fischer, who has accepted Iceland's offer, can only be promptly whisked away to freedom after nearly half a year in detention in the East Japan Immigration Bureau Detention Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, if the head honcho rubber-stamps alterations to documents currently ordering the chess whiz to be deported to the United States.
But the same official has already refused Fischer's repeated requests to be granted provisional release, roughly the Japanese equivalent of bail.
Immigration Bureau officials concede that changing Fischer's deportation order is possible, but only under certain conditions. Detention center officials were not available to comment on Friday night.
In Tokyo, Immigration Bureau spokesman Shoichiro Okabe said that under Article 53 of the Immigration Law, nationality is the prime determining factor on where to send a person banished from Japan.
But Okabe added that in cases where somebody would be deported to a country where they were likely to meet danger or persecution, or their homeland refuses to accept them, they could be shipped to another country such as a place where they had lived before, or had been in before arriving in Japan.
Okabe said he could not comment on individual cases, but did say that in Fischer's case, deportation to Iceland "is not totally impossible."
American Fischer is battling to avoid being sent to the United States, where he was charged in 1992 for playing chess in Yugoslavia against sanctions, and faces 10 years in jail and a maximum 250,000 dollar fine if convicted.
Fischer is contesting the deportation order issued against him in August and the Tokyo District Court has ordered he not be deported until it rules on his case.
Immigration Bureau officials say the order is influencing their decision on whether to allow Fischer to accept Iceland's offer of residency offered on Wednesday, ironically 12 years to the day the grand jury in the U.S. indicted America's only World Chess Champion and made him a fugitive in his homeland.
Iceland is believed to have offered Fischer residency there because he trounced the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky there to claim the world title in 1972.
Fischer's lawyer, Masako Suzuki, joined jubilant Fischer supporters in a Friday news conference at the Foreign Correspondent's Club of Japan. She put the onus onto the government for deciding the future of Fischer's ongoing lawsuit aimed at halting his deportation.
"Once immigration actually rewrites the destination (on the deportation order), we are happy to withdraw the case," Suzuki said.
Suzuki added that approval for Fischer leaving for Iceland should be a formality.
"The purpose of the issuance of the deportation order is not to deport someone to a particular country, but the purpose of the deportation order is to deport a person from Japan," Suzuki said. "From that understanding, the destination is not an important thing. And in practice, the destination of the deportation order has been rewritten so far."
She said Fischer could be freed "within one month.""In usual cases, it takes not so long because there is no problem and Japanese immigration is really happy to rewrite the deportation order," she said. "If (Fischer's) case is going in the same way as other cases, it's possible for him to go to Iceland within one month.
John Bosnitch, head of the Committee to Free Bobby Fischer, urged the Japanese government to let the chess genius leave the country.
"If Japan really is operating in good faith, Bobby Fischer is ready to leave, Iceland is ready to receive him. No passport is needed. Open the door and release Bobby," he said. "If Japan, however, is not operating in good faith and is operating in collusion with the United States to try to make a backdoor extradition to send Bobby to the United States to serve a sentence for playing chess, then we will continue to fight this for as long as it takes, even if it takes years."
Fischer's Japanese fiancee, Miyoko Watai, said the chess champion thought Iceland's offer was "great" but added that he was worried the Japanese and U.S. governments would try and thwart his chance at freedom.
Watai later told the Mainichi that Fischer was not particularly certain of his status and believes his release will come within a few days.
Watai skillfully dodged a question about whether Fischer would resume his chess career if he moved to Iceland, saying only "he is still interested in making a nice chess clock."
Fischer has stated many times that he no longer plays chess, instead playing a variation called Fischerrandom, where the back row of pieces is lined up randomly. (By Ryann Connell, Mainichi Daily News, Dec. 17, 2004)
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20041217p2a00m0dm014000c.html