Chess legend Bobby Fischer walked free yesterday from a Japanese detention center and immediately departed on a plane for his new home, Iceland, following a nine-month standoff with Tokyo officials trying to deport him to the US.
Fischer, sporting a long, gray beard, jeans and a baseball cap pulled down low over his face, left the immigration detention center on Tokyo's outskirts early yesterday morning.
Japanese immigration 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.
As he was taken yesterday to the airport in a black limousine provided by the Icelandic Embassy, his vehicle was mobbed by a few dozen immigration officials, photographers and reporters.
Fischer was accompanied by his fiancee, Miyoko Watai -- the head of Japan's chess association -- and Iceland's ambassador to Japan Thordur Oskarsson. Fischer and Watai caught an afternoon flight to Denmark en route to Iceland.
Fischer was characteristically defiant as he arrived at the airport and spoke briefly to reporters.
"I won't be free until I get out of Japan. 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.
As he walked toward the airport entrance, he turned, unzipped his pants and acted like he was going to urinate on the wall.
Fischer, detained since his arrest, claims his US passport was revoked illegally and sued to block a deportation order to the US, where he is wanted for violating sanctions imposed on the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition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.
Fischer, 62, could still face extradition to the US -- Iceland, like Japan, has an extradition treaty with Washington.
Ambassador Oskarsson had said before Fischer's release that Washington sent a "message of disappointment" to the Icelandic government over giving Fischer citizenship.
"Despite the message, the decision was put through Parliament on humanitarian grounds," Oskarsson said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image