05:57 PM EST Mar 18
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) - A parliamentary committee in
Iceland voted Friday to grant citizenship to fugitive
U.S. chess star Bobby Fischer, putting the issue up for
a vote by all legislators.
"The matter has been finished," said Gudrun
Oegmundsdottir, a member the General Committee. "It will
now go before the parliament on Monday for the vote."
Fischer, 62, has been detained in Japan awaiting
deportation to the United States, where he is wanted for
violating economic sanctions against the former
Yugoslavia by playing a highly publicized chess match
there in 1992.
One of Fischer's supporters in Iceland said the Japanese
government had confirmed it would allow him to go to
Iceland if citizenship was granted.
"This is great news," said Fischer supporter Saemundur
Palsson. "They had been waiting on confirmation from
Japan that Fischer would be let go if he had Icelandic
citizenship. This arrived to me this morning."
There is widespread support for Fischer in Iceland,
where he played the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in a
world championship match in 1972.
Iceland's parliament voted last month against granting
Fischer citizenship, offering him a special foreigners'
passport and residence permit instead. But Japanese
officials declined to release him.
Since being taken into custody in July for allegedly
trying to leave Japan on a revoked U.S. passport,
Fischer has repeatedly denounced the U.S. deportation
order as politically motivated, demanded refugee status,
renounced his U.S. citizenship and said he wants to
become a German national instead.
He has also applied to marry Mikyoko Watai, head of the
Japan Chess Association.
"We are currently organizing a fundraising for the party
that will go out to meet him," said Einar Einarsson,
former CEO of VISA Iceland and one of Fischers strongest
supporters.
"We might need to bring his girlfriend Miyoko Watai over
too, as well as John Bosnitch, his supporter now in
Japan, so there are expenses involved," Einarsson said.
"Fischer has money, but he can't get at it from where he
is now."
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