Chess legend Fischer tramps off to Iceland

Once he toured the world first class, the snappily-suited chess champion taking on all comers.

But now Bobby Fischer cuts a sad figure with an unkempt beard, jeans and baggy jumper - a legend looking for a home.

After nine months in a Japanese detention centre where he was being held for travelling on an allegedly invalid passport, Fischer, 62, has been released.

The former world chess champion was freed after being given citizenship by Iceland, where he is due to arrive later today. Looking for all the world like a wandering hobo, Fischer was photographed at Tokyo's Narita airport, waiting for his Scandinavian Airways flight to his adopted country.

He was with his fiancé¥ Miyoko Watai, head of Japan's chess association, and officials from the Icelandic embassy.

Fischer was taken into custody by Japanese immigration officials in July when he tried to leave the country using an invalid US passport. He is wanted by America for violating sanctions imposed on the former Yugoslavia by playing an exhibition match against his great rival, Russian Boris Spassky, in 1992.

Iceland's parliament voted on Monday to grant citizenship to Fischer.

Supporter Saemundur Palsson said: "I hope he will stop cursing the Americans now. It has got him into so much trouble."

Fischer won the world title in the classic Cold War encounter with Spassky, then Soviet champion, in Iceland in 1972. Now, after been treated as a pariah by the United States, the former champion of the west has been adopted as a hero by the country that saw his greatest triumph.

Fischer has denounced the US deportation order as politically motivated and renounced his US citizenship. The United States says it is " disappointed" Iceland has granted him citizenship.