Bobby Fischer arrives in Iceland

2005-03-25 07:59

Reykjavik - Chess legend Bobby Fischer on Thursday recovered his freedom and arrived in Iceland, where he is to make his home after spending eight months in a Japanese prison with the threat of extradition to the United States hanging over his head.

The highly controversial former world champion, 62, who became a citizen of the Nordic country this week, arrived late at night in the Icelandic capital. He flew from Tokyo via Copenhagen on the Scandinavian carrier SAS and then on a private plane chartered by Icelandic television.

The grandmaster stepped down from the aircraft at Reykjavik's little urban airport a few minutes after touchdown, slightly unsteady, before being taken to his hotel without making any statement to waiting journalists.

Dozens of young supporters waited to greet Fischer, brandishing welcome signs and shouting his name. The grandmaster waved to them before getting into the waiting Range Rover.

Fischer, wearing a baseball cap and sporting a long, unkempt salt-and-pepper beard, had left Tokyo on Thursday afternoon local time.

Landed in Copenhagen

En route to his new home, he landed in Copenhagen and was quickly ushered into a waiting car by Danish police, far from waiting reporters, before boarding a private plane bound for Iceland.

But due to fog the aircraft was rerouted to Sweden before resuming the last leg of its journey.

Fischer, who became a hero in the United States in the 1970s for breaking Soviet dominance of chess, called US President George W Bush a "criminal" on leaving Japan.

He is wanted in the United States for defying sanctions on Yugoslavia by playing a match there in 1992 at the time of the Balkan wars.

A household name in Iceland after a 1972 Cold War chess showdown with Russian world champion Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Fischer was granted citizenship in the small island nation earlier this week, permitting him to avoid extradition to the US, where he faces up to 10 years in prison.

- AFP