Dis cat needs a tinfoil hat...
Posted on 08/06/2004 6:54:37 AM PDT by kennedy
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted by Washington for defying sanctions on Yugoslavia, plans to renounce his U.S. citizenship, a lawyer working on his appeal against deportation from Japan said on Friday.
Fischer, 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, 61, 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."
The letter, copies of which were made available to the media, added: "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."
Fischer's lawyer Suzuki told a news conference he would likely become a stateless person for some time and that his supporters would try to have the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) register him as a refugee.
Suzuki said Fischer phoned the U.S. embassy in Japan on Thursday and conveyed his intention to renounce his citizenship.
But renunciation of his citizenship cannot take effect until he has met a U.S. consular official and conveyed his intent in person, she said.
A U.S. embassy spokesman declined to comment on the matter of Fischer's citizenship, but said that in general "renunciation of citizenship is a process, it takes some time, it's not done instantly."
Besides filing with the UNHCR, Fischer would also look for countries willing to let him stay, Suzuki said.
"We want to look far and wide for countries that are willing to accept him," Suzuki said.
NO RETURN TO U.S. She declined to say if Fischer had expressed any preferences but John Bosnitch, a Tokyo-based Canadian journalist and communications consultant who is advising Fischer, said Fischer was continuing to look at the option of seeking German citizenship, since his father was German.
Documents to prove his German citizenship were still being collected, Bosnitch told the same news conference.
Suzuki said she had asked the Tokyo District Court on Friday to halt deportation procedures against Fischer.
One thing that is clear is that Fischer has no desire to return to the United States.
"He doesn't have any expectation of a fair trial in the United States," Bosnitch said, adding that Fischer himself had said he would be a victim of "a kangaroo court and a show trial" if he returned to the United States.
Bosnitch said Fischer had written a second letter renouncing his citizenship that his supporters would hand to the U.S. embassy in Tokyo as early as Friday.
Fischer became world chess champion in 1972 when he beat Boris 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.
Fischer, who arrived in Japan in April, has been wanted in the United States since 1992 when he violated U.S. economic sanctions by going to Yugoslavia for a chess match in which he won $3 million for beating old rival Spassky.
The elusive chessmaster then vanished, only to resurface after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States to give an interview to a Philippine radio station in which he praised the strikes and said he wanted to see America "wiped out."
Fischer has filed for refugee status in Japan, which accepts only political refugees. His 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.
State Department officials in Washington have said it took years for the legal process to catch up with Fischer.
Fischer, whose mother was Jewish, has also stirred controversy with anti-Semitic remarks. (Additional reporting by Linda Sieg)
Now all I can say is good riddance to bad rubbish.
He was always weird (even more weird than the average chess geek - and I married one, so I should know!) but his history paints a pretty clear picture of a progressive slide into schizophrenia.
I really wonder if he's sufficiently of sound mind to be responsible for anything he's done in the last couple of decades.
Maybe Kerry/Edwards will make a trip to see their "friends" in far off places and we can do the same thing to them?
Can't he take a few of those Hollywierd lefties with him while he's at it?
North Korea comes to mind...
Unfortunately, all the ones I know aren't going anywhere.
Cuba? (Payback for Mariel).
buh bye - dont let the door hit you on the way out
I'd prefer to see him go to France. The Freench could use him more.
Nah. He'd be way to accepted and comfortable in France.
There is no question that he is several fries short of a happy meal, but I would not go so far as to say that he is not responsible for anything he has done.
IMHO, he is a bitter, pathetic excuse for a human being.
And he will never show up in person, since he has committed felonies against the US which would result in his immediate arrest.
Fischer was continuing to look at the option of seeking German citizenship, since his father was German. Documents to prove his German citizenship were still being collected, Bosnitch told the same news conference.
Fischer does not really know who his father is. His mother was a US citizen, but his real paternity is a matter of speculation.
The man Fischer currently believes to be his father (he has had several different theories at different times) was a German citizen, but he was also a Jewish victim of the Holocaust.
But Fischer prefers to think of him as a simple German because Fischer is a raving anti-Semite.
I'd like to see idiots like himleave with a libtard under each arm, more efficient that way.
In my best David Spade voice…
Bub –bye now… bub-bye.
Buh-bye, ya tool!
Dis cat needs a tinfoil hat...
Thank you Bobby..
cleaning America.... one weirdo at a time.
Helen Hunt ... "What part didn't you understand? The Buh or the Bye?"
At the least, they should require him to undergo a mental exam as soon as they manage to get extradition. And then send him somewhere for a nice long stay . . .
He'd be perfect for Effn's advisory staff.
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