Jailed Fischer makes a counterplay
One of the first people to visit Bobby Fischer in his cell at the Narita Airport Immigration Bureau Detention center was a well dressed, articulate Canadian media consultant who had lived in Tokyo since the early 1990s. His name was John Bosnitch.
Bosnitch had kept a quiet profile in his 15 years in Tokyo, but the 43-year-old media consultant had left behind some notoriety.
During his time as the longest serving student union president ever at the University of New Brunswick, in Fredericton, Canada, he attempted a takeover of the student union. He so threatened the university’s administration, it banned him from ever entering the campus again — a decision Bosnitch says was unfair.
At 22, not long after he was ostracized, he ran in the Fredericton mayoral election, picking up a commendable 36 percent of the vote, but not winning.
In the late 1980s, he witnessed a case of police brutality while in Montreal. He became a key witness in the prosecution of the offending officers, which eventually threatened his safety and drove him to the Far East.
Though an engineering graduate, Bosnitch moved into journalism in Japan. The fierce sense of justice that propelled him to act in the Montreal case was also at work in the early ‘90s.
Angered by the Western bias in coverage of the civil war in Yugoslavia, Bosnitch headed to the battlefields to report from Serbian lines, a decidedly rare, and unpopular, choice among English-speaking journalists at the time, but one from which he never wavered.
Upon returning to Tokyo, Bosnitch continued his work in journalism, including a stint as the editor of the influential No. 1 Shimbun, the newspaper of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.
Among the many jobs the hard-working Bosnitch holds down is one at NHK — the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, a taxpayer funded national and satellite network.
While working there, Bosnitch heard the news that Fischer had been arrested and was being held at Narita. He contacted the Japan Chess Association and offered his assistance, free of charge, which was accepted.
His motivations were simple – the same sense of justice that drove him to exile and a war zone, as well as a little bit more.
“I was 11 years old in 1972, when Bobby Fischer became the world chess champion,” he told the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, his hometown newspaper. “At that time in my life, there would have been Batman, Superman and Bobby Fischer as my heroes, and not necessarily in that order.”
JCA officials told Bosnitch where Fischer was being held and briefed him on the case. On July 16, Bosnitch headed out to Narita to meet the incarcerated Grand Master.
Fischer was in desperate need of help. He had continued his policy of non-cooperation and it had brought him to the brink of being deported.
After Peter van Buren, the Citizen Services Director from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, had left Fischer two days earlier, the Grand Master had persisted in refusing to give his name, sign documents and resisted attempts to take his photograph and fingerprints.
On July 15, Immigration Bureau guards dragged Fischer in a deportation hearing and, with the Grand Master refusing to answer questions, a verdict for his expulsion from Japan was handed down.
An order authorizing he be sent to the United States was drawn up. Fischer appeared doomed to facing trial in his homeland, with a conviction carrying the possibility of 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine, or both. Enter Bosnitch.
Miyoko Watai, a Japanese women’s chess multiple champion, acting head of the JCA and more as it would turn out, convinced Fischer to meet Bosnitch.
Immigration Bureau officers were not keen on allowing the Canadian in to see Fischer. But he managed to talk his way past them and greeted the chess champion.
Fischer is famously guarded, so he hardly welcomed Bosnitch with open arms. Bosnitch quickly shocked the media shy Grand Master.
“When I told him I’m a journalist, he almost said ‘forget it,’” Bosnitch told the Telegraph-Journal.
But Bosnitch laid out the situation straight – he could simply walk away, grab a Coke and sit back while Fischer was on his way toward a fast plane and jail in the United States if he received no assistance. Or, he could help and try to fight.
Never one to shirk a battle, Fischer was convinced.
“OK, you’re in,” Fischer told Bosnitch, though he would not recognize him as an official legal counselor because he felt to do so would legitimize the charges against him. Fischer also said he would continue to refuse to sign any documents.
An understanding reached, the pair got down to discussing strategy. They agreed they wanted Fischer’s unconditional release.
An appeal was filed and a hearing date set for Friday, July 23, 2004. Bosnitch hit a bureaucratic snag.
Fischer was technically permitted to have two people present at the hearing — a lawyer and a good friend. As the Canadian was neither, he was forced to argue to be allowed to take part as an advisor.
Bosnitch spent the following three hours arguing with Immigration Bureau officials about procedural matters concerned with both Japanese and U.S. law.
When officials were asked to present Fischer’s passport, they were told that the U.S. Embassy’s van Buren had taken it with him. Bosnitch filed a criminal complaint, accusing the diplomat of theft.
Flustered officials were getting tired and frustrated. They wanted to call an end to the hearing and said they would meet again the following Monday.
Bosnitch thwarted them again, informing them he could not attend because of other concerns and demanding the hearing put be put back further. He got what he wanted and bought Fischer more time.
He told officials he had 25 items of evidence to submit in his argument. As the fingers on the clock lurched toward 11 o’clock that night, Bosnitch informed the officials that he had finished explaining just five of the 25 points he had to make. They called it a day.
“The stenographer fell asleep,” Bosnitch told Tokyo Metropolis, the premiere English weekly in the Japanese capital.
When the hearing eventually resumed, it would not be good news for Fischer. The Immigration Bureau saw no grounds to accept his appeal. Fischer’s next hope was to appeal to the Justice Minister, at that time it was Daizo Nozawa. He eventually did so.
Fischer also applied for what the Japanese call “provisional release,” which is effectively bail. Given that Japanese police can hold suspects for up to 23 days without charging them, it was unlikely Fischer would receive it, having been incarcerated for about two weeks at the time.
Nonetheless, he got some powerful support for his case from an old friend, Ichiji Ishii, a former vice minister of foreign affairs and member of Japan’s House of Representatives.
A search for a Japanese lawyer was also launched. Fischer, Bosnitch and the Grand Master’s supporters would find Masako Suzuki.
