REYKJAVIK - Chess legend Bobby Fischer began his new life as a resident of Iceland on Friday with anti-Jewish slurs and by lambasting his country of origin, the United States, which has a warrant out for his arrest.
"The Jew-controlled United States is evil. They talk about the axis of evil. What about the allies of evil? What about the US, England, Japan, Australia and so on? These are the evil doers," said Fischer, who has been harshly criticized for issuing similar statements in the past.
The chess genius, who arrived in Iceland late Thursday, also told reporters that chess is "dead".
Fischer, 62, who has spent the past nine months in Japanese custody under threat of being extradited to the US to serve a long prison term, was granted Icelandic citizenship earlier this week.
He has been a household name in Iceland since a 1972 Cold War chess showdown with Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, and many Icelanders have shown gratitude to him for giving their small nation prominence with the match of the century.
Asked how he saw his future in the small island nation near the Arctic Circle, he said, "I see it as very good. It's a wonderful country (with) fresh air, nice people, nice food and plenty of room."
While Fischer appears set on starting a new life for himself in Iceland, the United States, which hailed him as a hero in the 1970s for breaking Soviet dominance of chess, has vowed to keep pushing for his extradition.
The US has never forgiven him for defying sanctions on Yugoslavia by playing a rematch with Spassky there in 1992, and if he ever returns to his country of origin he faces 10 years behind bars.
"We're going to continue to act on this case and we're going to continue to seek to bring it to a satisfactory resolution," Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said on Thursday, expressing regret that Fischer had not been extradited from Japan to the US.
03/25/2005 22:19 GMT