Fischer turns Japanese

last updated 8 January 2015

Tokyo

Fugitive chess champ Bobby Fischer said this week that he planned to marry a leading Japanese chess official. But it’s unclear whether he will be allowed to marry Miyoko Watai, the woman he has been living with since 2000, because Japanese officials require marriage applicants to provide valid passports. Fischer, who is wanted in the U.S. for violating sanctions against Yugoslavia by playing chess there in 1992, was arrested in Japan last month for traveling on a revoked U.S. passport. He has been simultaneously fighting Japan’s deportation order and trying to formally renounce his U.S. citizenship. Fischer has also applied for asylum in Japan, saying he is a victim of U.S. political persecution.