From 'Reuters'. One could try to count the errors [1], but here is the
article:

from:

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackage...ldNews&storyID
=555005&section=news
or click: http://tinyurl.com/4zbsj

***BEGIN ARTICLE***

Ex-chess champ Fischer fights Japan deportation
Wed 28 July, 2004 04:48

By Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) - Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has asked to
be released from custody at a Tokyo detention centre while he appeals
against a Japanese move to deport him, a Canadian advising Fischer says.

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.

"He has asked for provisional release, which is discretionary, but which
we would hope for immediately," John Bosnitch, a Tokyo-based
communications consultant and journalist, told Reuters on Wednesday.

A Japanese immigration official said Fischer could be held for up to 60
days while his appeal was heard, after which period detainees must be
released but stay in Japan to attend hearings.

Complex cases could take up to six months, but Fischer's case was
unlikely to drag on that long, the official added.

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.

Fischer arrived in Japan in April, unaware that his passport had been
revoked last December, Miyoko Watai of the Japan Chess Association, a
friend of Fischer, told Reuters last week.

Bosnitch, who offered to advise Fischer after he heard his "boyhood
hero" had been detained, said the former chess champion maintained that
his passport had never been properly revoked.

"He was visiting friends in Japan, as in the past. He did not have any
information to even suggest that the U.S. might want to revoke his
passport and to this day has not received any such written notice,"
Bosnitch said.

POLITICAL ASYLUM?

Bosnitch said he had urged Fischer to consult a lawyer.

"Until now, Bobby Fischer has not engaged a lawyer because he is saying,
'I don't want to dignify this kidnapping by making it look like it is a
legal proceeding'," Bosnitch said.

In a July 15 statement on his Web site, Fischer said he did not wish to
return to the United States, where he could face prison or a fine, and
was seeking an offer of political asylum from a third country.

An embassy spokesman said a U.S. consular official had met Fischer at
the detention centre and that his passport had been returned to the
embassy by the Japanese government since it had been revoked. He
declined further comment on the case.

A Narita immigration official denied allegations by Fischer on his Web
site that he had been mistreated when he was detained.

Fischer won the world chess title in 1972, beating Spassky of the Soviet
Union in Reykjavik, Iceland, in a victory seen as something of a Cold
War propaganda coup for the United States.

He lost the title in 1975 after his conditions for a match against
Anatoly Karpov, also of the Soviet Union, were rejected by chess
officials. Karpov became champion by default.

Fischer disappeared until the 1992 match against Spassky, whom he again
defeated, taking $3 million in prize money.

He then disappeared again, resurfacing after the September 11, 2001
attacks on the United States to give an interview to Philippines radio
praising the strikes.

Fischer, whose mother was Jewish, has also stirred controversy with
anti-Semitic remarks.

***END ARTICLE***


[1] Here are some:

a) he resigned the FIDE title;
b) he had a bag put over his head after he was grabbed at Narita
airport;
c) the US-'Soviet' 'Cold War' ended long before 1972, which was in the
period of 'Détente';
d) he did not 'disappear' in 1992, to 'resurface' only after 2001

--
banana "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you
give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to
Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the
rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)