Bobby Fischer was an American who won the world chess championship in 1972. In a dramatic match with Boris Spassky in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik, Fischer became the first non-Soviet citizen to take the title since the Second World War. Fischer refused to defend his title, however, and adopted a reclusive lifestyle, seemingly overcome by his own personal eccentricities, which had always been pronounced.

In 1992, a prize fund of $5 million persuaded Fischer to participate in a rematch with Spassky which was hosted in Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was then under American economic sanctions so, in accepting money in this way, Fischer had committed a crime under U.S. law and thereafter became a fugitive from justice.

In recent years Fischer has attracted attention for a series of outlandish remarks he has made in radio interviews including some which praised the attacks of September 11th and others in which he claimed he was the victim of a Jewish conspiracy.

Fischer was apprehended in Japan in 2004 while trying to leave the country with an out-of-date U.S. passport. He remained in a legal limbo for some time before being allowed to leave for Iceland where the government had granted him citizenship.