Japan ruled out granting chess master Bobby Fischer his wish to leave for Iceland on Tuesday, saying he can only be deported to the United States.
Fischer, in custody in Japan since his arrest last July for travelling on an invalid U.S. passport, is wanted in the United States for violating sanctions against Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992.
Iceland, where Fischer won the world chess title in 1972 in a classic Cold War encounter with Soviet champion Boris Spassky, has offered Fischer a home and issued him a special passport.
But a Japanese Justice Ministry official, quizzed in a parliamentary committee by an opposition lawmaker, said Fischer does not meet criteria to be an exception to Japan’s policy of deporting immigration law violators to their home countries.
“The basic principle is for the deportation destination to be the home country of the person concerned ... We do not think this case constitutes an exception,” said Masaharu Miura, head of the ministry’s Immigration Bureau.
Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura denied that Japan was trying to placate the U.S. over Fischer.
A lawyer for Fischer said last week that a suit would be filed against the government unless he was freed soon.
