Bobby Fischer: five days in solitary confinement

The ever-watchful Mainichi Daily News reports that Bobby Fischer was placed in solitary confinement for several days (we are told for five) "because of a brawl over a single hard-boiled egg". Apparently Fischer asked for an extra egg. There was an argument and a scuffle, after which Fisher was "hurled alone into a cell lit and monitored 24 hours from Wednesday to Sunday."

Mainichi notes that the fight occurred on the same day that the first of two delegations of eminent persons from Iceland were due to meet him at the East Japan Immigration Bureau Detention Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture. Officials at the center were aware that Fischer was due to receive a delegation on exactly the day he ended up in solitary confinement.

It was the first time Fischer had been placed in a solitary cell since he was sent to Ushiku in August last year. "It was a blatant provocation," Gardar Sverrisson, an Icelandic politician and member of a Fischer support group said at the home of the Tokyo Bar Association.

Details of the incident were given by Fischer's fiancee Miyoko Watai and his long-time friend, Saemundur Palsson, who was able to visit Fisher and speak to him through a glass window on Monday morning. Fischer told Palsson that he had asked a passing guard if he could have an egg for his breakfast. He grabbed the guard by his shirt, which unfortunately ripped. "A group of about 14 or 15 guards came into Fischer's cell to drag him away," Palsson reports. "He resisted their efforts. Guards slapped handcuffs on him with his hands behind his back, holding him that way for two hours. Then a middle-aged guard approached Fischer, told him he had to behave himself, then started to free him from his bindings. When the handcuffs were released, another scuffle broke out and Fischer hit a guard in the face." Palsson said he was not sure whether Fischer had hit the warden purposely or by accident. He said Fischer had not spoken about whether it was deliberate.

After his release from solitary confinement Fischer was on Monday permitted individual 30-minute meetings with Watai, Palsson and Gudmunder Thorarinsson, former head of the Icelandic Chess Federation and organizer of Fischer's 1972 match in Reykjavik with Boris Spassky for the world title. The Icelanders are hoping to escort Fischer back to their country. Iceland has prepared a special foreigner's passport for him and his supporters have an airplane ticket out of the country with his name on it. He is hoping to leave by Wednesday, his 62nd birthday, but that wish seems almost impossible.

• Here's the full Mainichi story

Previous ChessBase articles

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