Easter in Iceland for chess champ

Eccentric chessmaster Bobby Fischer arrived in Iceland last Thursday, only days after Iceland’s parliament voted to grant Fischer citizenship.

Fischer last visited Iceland more than 30 years ago, in 1972, when he beat Russian chessmaster Boris Spassky in Reykjavik.

Fischer, 62, had been held in Japan since July, awaiting deportation to the United States for violating economic sanctions against the former Yugoslavia where he played a chess match in 1992, and for trying to leave Japan on a revoked U.S. passport.

The Associated Press news service says Fischer, after being freed from nine months’ detention in Japan, called the U.S. “an illegitimate country” and maintained the charges against him were groundless.