Iceland grants citizenship to Bobby Fischer

Iceland has granted citizenship to 62-year-old former chess champion Bobby Fischer – a boost to Fischer's efforts to fight deportation from Japan to the United States. Fischer, who is wanted there for violating economic sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a highly publicized match in Belgrade in 1992, has been in Japanese custody since July last year. Immigration officials in Iceland said a passport for Fischer could be ready as early as Tuesday. The Icelandic legislation, which passed with 40 members of parliament voting in favor and two abstaining, took effect immediately. Fischer became an icon in 1972 when he dethroned the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in a series of games in Reykjavik to claim America's first world chess championship in more than a century. Fischer, son of a Jewish mother, also has re-emerged in radio broadcasts and on his website to express anti-Semitic views and rail against the United States. A federal grand jury in Washington, meanwhile, is investigating possible money-laundering charges involving Fischer. He was reported to have received US$ 3.5 million from the competition in Yugoslavia.