Defiant Bobby free at last
2005-03-24 11:07
Narita - Sporting a long beard, chess legend Bobby Fischer walked free on Thursday from a Japanese detention centre and immediately headed to the airport to fly to his new home, Iceland, following a nine-month standoff with Tokyo officials trying to deport him to the United States.
Before leaving, however, the eccentric genius offered a few parting shots to the leaders of Japan and the United States, whom he accused of "kidnapping."
"I won't be free until I get out of Japan," he told a crowd of reporters at the airport here before boarding his flight to Copenhagen en route to Reykjavic. "This was not an arrest. It was a kidnapping cooked up by Bush and Koizumi," he said, referring to US President George W Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
"They are war criminals and should be hung," he said.
'Jew-controlled' US
Fischer, with a long white beard and wearing jeans and a baseball cap, left the immigration detention centre on Tokyo's outskirts early on Thursday morning. Japanese officials released the eccentric chess icon after taking him into custody in July, when he tried to leave the country using an invalid US passport.
Fischer was accompanied to the airport by his fiancée, Miyoko Watai - the head of Japan's chess association - and Iceland's ambassador to Japan Thordur Oskarsson.
Fischer, 62, was in high spirits and characteristically defiant as he arrived at the airport.
As he walked toward the airport entrance, he turned, unzipped his pants and acted like he was going to urinate on the wall. He called Japan's ruling party "gangsters," and said he was being hounded by the United States because it is "Jew-controlled."
Fischer claims his US passport was revoked illegally and sued to block a deportation order to the United States, where he is wanted for violating sanctions imposed on the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition match against Russian Boris Spassky in 1992.
This week, Iceland's Parliament stepped in to break the standoff, giving Fischer citizenship. Iceland is where he won the world championship in 1972, defeating Spassky in a classic Cold War showdown that propelled him to international stardom.
Moving to Iceland doesn't necessarily mean Fischer has beaten Washington's effort to prosecute him. Iceland, like Japan, has an extradition treaty with Washington.
A federal grand jury in Washington, meanwhile, is reportedly investigating possible money-laundering charges involving Fischer and he may face tax-related charges as well. Fischer was reported to have received $3.5m from the competition in the former Yugoslavia, and boasted then that he didn't intend to pay any income tax on the money.
Ambassador Oskarsson had said before Fischer's release that Washington sent a "message of disappointment" to the Icelandic government over giving Fischer citizenship.
- AP