Japan will release former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, wanted in the United States, so he can go to Iceland where he has been granted citizenship, his lawyer said today.
The United States - where Fischer is wanted for violating sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992 - has said it was disappointed by Iceland's move and reiterated that Washington wanted Fischer handed over.
Bobby Fischer (62) will be released from detention tomorrow and probably fly out a few hours later, his lawyer, Masako Suzuki told Reuters.
Linda Hartley, spokeswoman for the US embassy in Iceland
He has been held in Japan since July, when he was arrested for travelling on what US officials said was an invalid passport. Japanese justice ministry officials were not immediately available to comment.
Iceland's parliament had granted Mr Fischer citizenship on Monday, opening the door for him to settle in the courntry where he won the world title in 1972 in a classic Cold War encounter with Soviet champion Boris Spassky.
"The formal procedure is finished," Iceland's ambassador to Japan, Thordur Oskarsson, said today.
"Mr Fischer is a true Icelander now." Bobby Fischer has used a series of legal moves to fight deportation to the United States, including seeking refugee status, renouncing his US citizenship and unveiling plans to marry his companion Miyoko Watai, a four-time Japan women's chess champion.
States said on Tuesday that it was disappointed at its ally Iceland's decision to grant Mr Fischer citizenship. "We would like Mr Fischer to return to the United States so that the charges that have been filed against him can be properly addressed through our legal system," Linda Hartley, spokeswoman for the US embassy in Iceland's capital of Reykjavik, told Icelandic television channel RUV.