DNA tests have shown that chess genius Bobby Fischer was not the father of a 9-year-old girl from the Philippines, bringing a paternity claim against his estate to a close, two lawyers familiar with the case said Tuesday.
The test result was announced in Reykjavik District Court, said lawyer Gudjon Olafur Jonsson, who represents Fischer’s two American nephews in their own claim on his estate.
Fischer’s remains were exhumed in July so samples could be taken to determine if he had fathered Jinky Young, whose mother Marilyn said she had a relationship with the chess icon. Jinky, who lives in the Philippines with her mother, flew to Iceland last year to provide her own sample.
“I can confirm that the result of the DNA report excluded Bobby Fisher from being the father of Jinky Young, and therefore the case has come to a close,” said lawyer Thordur Bogason, who represents Jinky.
Though the paternity case has ended, the wrangling over Fischer’s estate continues. He died aged 64 in Iceland in January 2008, leaving no will.
Jonsson said the elimination of the paternity claim simplifies the case between Fischer’s nephews and the woman who was his long-term partner. The case is scheduled to be heard in Reykjavik next month, Jonsson said, adding he hopes for a result by the end of the year.
Fischer was born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His 1972 defeat of Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the world chess championship — a tournament that was played in Reykjavik — made him world-famous and an American hero.
But later, Fischer would become an erratic figure, losing his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it and then dropping out of competitive chess.
He spent time in the Philippines and Hungary, and was arrested in Japan in 2004. Fischer was threatened with extradition to the U.S. to face charges of breaking international sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992.
Fischer renounced his American citizenship, and was then taken in by Iceland in 2005, a chess-loving nation, which gave him citizenship. Fischer is buried about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of the capital, Reykjavik.
The remains of chess genius Bobby Fischer are to be exhumed to determine whether he is the father of a 9-year-old girl, a lawyer representing the child and her mother said Thursday.
Thordur Bogason, a lawyer based in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, said the country’s Supreme Court made the decision earlier this week in order to allow for tests so his client, Jinky Young, can find out who her father is.
“At this point we are just trying to establish this,” he said. “And if she is confirmed as the daughter of Bobby Fischer, then by Icelandic law she is his legal heir.”
Fischer, 64, died in Iceland in January 2008. He left no will, Bogason said, adding that legal cases over who has the right to the U.S.-born player’s estate are ongoing.
Bogason said he had no information on the size of the estate left by Fischer. His longtime partner and relatives in the United States are also involved in the dispute, the lawyer said.
Gudjon Olafur Jonsson, who represents the American relatives, said his clients accepted the court’s decision and awaited the results of the paternity tests. Representatives of Fischer’s partner could not be immediately reached.
One of Iceland’s lower courts had originally been asked for permission to examine Fischer’s remains, Bogason said, but it was denied. They appealed to the Supreme Court, which released its judgment on Wednesday.
Bogason called the decision to ask for the exhumation of Fischer’s remains a “last resort,” and said that they had hoped blood samples from Fischer might have been stored in an Icelandic hospital.
Fischer is buried in southwestern Iceland, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Reykjavik. He had lived in the country since 2005.
Bogason said evidence was presented to the court that showed that Fischer had sent Jinky and her mother Marilyn Young “considerable” amounts of money on eight occasions in the years before he died, ranging from euro1,000 to euro5,000 ($1,230 to $6,150).
In the Supreme Court’s judgment — which uses no names — Jinky’s interest in determining her paternity was acknowledged as important. It said proof that more significant interests trumped that claim would have been required to prevent Fischer’s exhumation.
Jinky, who lives in the Philippines with Young, flew to Iceland to provide her own blood sample in December.
The judgment said Fischer had regular contact with Jinky and her mother and that they had visited him in Iceland.
Their lawyer in the Philippines, Samuel Estimo, said, “we are very happy with the way the Supreme Court of Iceland ruled on our request.” Young could not be reached.
The woman who was described in the judgment as Fischer’s “partner for many years and a close friend and confidante until his death” said in court papers he never mentioned that he had a child with Young. She described that as being out of character because Fischer was “a very precise man.”
Fischer, who was born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, New York, became world famous in 1972 when he defeated Boris Spassky for the world championship. He held the title until 1975.
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Associated Press Writer Oliver Tevez contributed to this story from Manila.
Chill the vodka and dust off the martini glass. James Bond is back.
A new novel featuring the world’s most famous secret agent is set to be published next year, the family company of Bond creator Ian Fleming said Friday.
The as-yet untitled book carries the top-secret code name “Project X,” and will be written by American novelist Jeffery Deaver, best known for his series of thrillers featuring forensic genius Lincoln Rhyme.
It’s scheduled to be published May 28, 2011 — which would have been Fleming’s 103rd birthday. It comes nearly 60 years after the publication of “Casino Royale,” the first novel to feature 007.
Deaver said Fleming’s work was important to him, “both literarily and personally.”
“They appealed to me as wonderful stories but they also stood as singular examples of a thriller writer’s craft,” he said in a news release. “I learned, through osmosis as well as design, much technique from Mr. Fleming’s work: compactness, attention to detail, heroic though flawed characters, fast-pacing, concrete imagery and straightforward prose.”
In 2008, British novelist Sebastian Faulks wrote a Bond novel to mark the centenary of Fleming’s birth. That book, called “Devil May Care,” was released around the world and landed on best-seller lists. “Devil May Care” was set in 1967, and featured some of the trademarks expected in a Bond story: a glamorous woman with an improbable name, Scarlett Papava, and a menacing villain who had a monkey’s paw for a hand.
Deaver, who lives in North Carolina, has sold more than 20 million copies of novels worldwide. “The Bone Collector,” was made into a film in 1999, with Denzel Washington playing Rhyme and Angelina Jolie his trusted sidekick. A new Rhyme novel is due out in June in the United States and July in Britain.
Another novel, “Garden of Beasts,” won the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, given for the best adventure or thriller novel written in Bond-like style.
Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. managing director Corinne Turner thought then that “James Bond could have an interesting adventure in Jeffery Deaver’s hands.”
His Bond book, to be set in the present day, will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in Britain and Simon & Schuster in the United States. More than 100 million James Bond books have been sold around the world.
In April, it was announced that work on the next Bond movie — known only as “Bond 23″ — had been stopped indefinitely because of uncertainty about the future of distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. The film was due to be released in 2011 or 2012.
