Fugitive former world chess champion Bobby Fischer appealed to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday to help him renounce his U.S. citizenship as he announced plans to marry a leading Japanese chess official, his lawyer said.
Fischer, wanted in the United States for violating international sanctions on the former Yugoslavia, was detained in Japan last month when trying to travel on a revoked American passport. He has been fighting attempts to have him deported to the United States.
Fischer's attorney, Masako Suzuki, said she faxed a letter to Powell and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo demanding that a consular officer be sent to the chess great's detention center to accept his renunciation of U.S. citizenship.