NARITA - Former world chess champion turned fugitive Bobby Fischer left Japan after eight months in custody to live as a citizen of Iceland which saved him from prison in the United States.
Fischer, who became a hero in the United States in 1972 for breaking Soviet dominance of chess, sported a bushy white beard, a protruding belly and a baseball cap as an Icelandic diplomatic car took him from detention to Tokyo Narita airport.
Fischer, 62, has declared his hatred of the United States and faces 10 years in a US prison for defying US sanctions on Yugoslavia by playing a match there in 1992 at the time of the Balkan wars.
The temperamental 62-year-old genius parted Japan with characteristically harsh words, calling US President George W. Bush a "criminal" for seeking to prosecute him and accusing Japan of "kidnapping" him.
"I'm not free until I get out of Japan," Fischer said.
"I am going to relax in Iceland," he said before boarding a Scandinavian Airlines flight with his companion Miyoko Watai, the head of the Japan Chess Association who became engaged to Fischer when he was locked up.
Fischer's last attempt to board a plane was on July 13 when authorities in Narita said his US passport was invalid, setting off an international saga over the fate of the chess prodigy.
Fischer had spent much of the last decade living a quiet life in Japan, but offended even some of his fervent admirers with militantly anti-American and anti-Jewish remarks such as praising the September 11, 2001 attacks.
With Japan looking likely to send him to the US, Fischer was offered residency in December by Iceland, where he is a household name after a 1972 Cold War chess showdown there against Russian world champion Boris Spassky.
After Japan determined that Fischer should still be sent to the United States, Iceland on Monday gave the chess grandmaster full citizenship through a vote of parliament.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said the United States never made a "legal-based extradition request" for Fischer, meaning he was allowed to leave based on his new nationality.
But Fischer is not certain to be free of legal problems yet. US prosecutors are also planning tax evasion charges against him which could bring a formal extradition request. Iceland has an extradition treaty with the United States.
David Edmonds, who co-wrote an acclaimed book on the 1972 match, "Bobby Fischer Goes to War," said that Iceland viewed Fischer as a bit of "living history" and a "harmless crank."
But Edmonds noted that Fischer had spoken disdainfully of Iceland during the match three decades ago and aggravated the hosts with extravagant demands.
"Of all people, they have a track record of having to deal with Bobby Fischer, so they're not going to go into this with their eyes closed," Edmonds said.
"But his anti-Semitic remarks have become worse since then and it's quite possible that there will later be some embarrassment in Iceland about making this incredibly generous offer to him," Edmonds said.
Fischer, who was raised but later became estranged from his Jewish mother, was introduced to chess at age six by his elder sister. The sport became his only passion and he dropped out of high school to focus on nothing but chess.
He rose swiftly through the ranks and in 1972 at age 29 played what is likely the most famous chess match ever, dethroning Spassky in Reykjavik at a sport considered a Russian domain.
It was a rematch against Spassky in 1992 in Yugoslavia, then under an embargo over the Balkan wars, that proved to be Fischer's undoing.
In front of reporters, Fischer spat on a US government notice warning him not to go ahead with the match, for which he earned more than three million dollars.
He then went underground, spending much of his time in Japan as a recluse periodically making telephone calls to radio stations contaning expletive-filled tirades against the United States and Jewish people.
Even some of his supporters acknowledge he courted trouble when he went on Filipino radio hours after the September 11, 2001 attacks to rejoice at the "wonderful news" and advocate mass killings of Jews.

03-24-2005 at 11h12