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Monday, April 18, 2005.
Kasparov Hit With a Chessboard By Oksana Yablokova Staff Writer
Garry Kasparov, the world's former No. 1 chess player who recently retired to move into politics, was struck over the head with a chessboard in what his supporters believe was an attack ordered by the new pro-Kremlin Nashi, or Us, youth movement.
Kasparov, a leader of the liberal opposition group Committee 2008: Free Choice, sustained a bruise Friday when, after a meeting with leaders of youth organizations, one participant hit him, Kasparov's spokeswoman, Marina Litvinovich, told Interfax.
The assailant, a young man, asked Kasparov, 41, to autograph the chessboard and then hit him from behind while shouting insults, Litvinovich said.
"I admired you as a chess player, but you gave that up for politics," he said, according to Litvinovich.
The attacker attempted to strike Kasparov a second time but was stopped by security guards, who led him away.
"We see a direct link between this provocative incident and a statement made ... by Nashi leader Vasily Yakemenko," Litvinovich said.
Yakemenko singled out Kasparov as an enemy of President Vladimir Putin at Nashi's founding conference on Friday.
Nashi spokesman Ivan Mostovich denied any link between his group and the attack and suggested it was carried out by the radical National Bolshevik Party.
Party leader Eduard Limonov on Saturday denied any involvement in the attack and pointed the finger back at Nashi.
Yabloko, the liberal party, also said it believed Nashi was behind the attack and called for a criminal investigation.
The whereabouts of the attacker and his identity were unclear Sunday.
When Kasparov retired from chess last month, he said he planned to do "everything in my power to resist Putin's dictatorship." He was meeting Friday with youth organizations to discuss how to create a united democratic front, Litvinovich said.
Kasparov, speaking on NTV television Saturday, called the attack "a fairly nasty incident" but joked that "luckily chess, not baseball, was popular in the Soviet Union."
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