COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Chess icon Bobby Fischer landed in
Denmark on Thursday on his way from Tokyo to Iceland, which
granted him citizenship earlier this week enabling him to avoid
deportation to the United States.
Fischer was escorted by half a dozen police and uniformed
airport security guards from the plane to a van waiting on the
tarmac at Copenhagen airport and did not enter the transit hall
with the other passengers, a Reuters reporter on the scene said.
The former world champion had been in detention in Japan since
last July when he was taken into custody for traveling on what
U.S. officials said was an invalid U.S. passport.
According to Icelandic officials a private jet was scheduled to
take Fischer, 62, on the three-hour flight from Copenhagen to
Reykjavik where he became world champion in 1972 by beating
Soviet champion Boris Spassky in a classic Cold War encounter.
He could have faced prison and fines in the United States, where
he is wanted for violating sanctions against the former
Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992.
Fischer vanished after the 1992 match, in which he defeated his
old rival Spassky and pocketed $3 million.
He resurfaced after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United
States. In an interview with a Philippine radio station, Fischer
praised the strikes and said he wanted to see America "wiped
out."
Although born to a Jewish mother, Fischer has also stirred
controversy with anti-Semitic remarks. |
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