MANILA, Philippines - In a bizarre twist to the battle for the estate left by the late chess legend Bobby Fischer, lawyer Sammy Estimo hoped the remains of the chess icon will be exhumed soon.
Estimo, lawyer of Fischer’s Filipino child, Jinky Young, said that Judge Sigrun Gudmundsdottir of the Icelandic probate court found no DNA samples of Fischer at the National Hospital in Iceland where the ex-world champion died on Jan. 17, 2008 of renal failure.
This prompted Estimo and his collaborating Icelandic lawyer, Thordur Bogason to request the court to issue an order for the exhumation of Fischer’s remains for DNA samples to be tested with the blood samples extracted from Jinky when she went to Iceland in December last year.
Jinky, Fischer’s nephews and the Japanese Miyoko Watai, who claims to have married Fischer in 2004, are claimants to the $140 million and gold deposits left by the chess genius at the Landsbanki in Reykjavik. Fischer also purchased real estate properties in Iceland where he became a citizen after his release from a Japanese airport prison in 2005.
In a decision issued by the Supreme Court of Iceland in December last year, Watai’s marriage to Fischer was invalidated because of the failure of the Japanese to present the original of their alleged marriage certificate.
On April 16, Judge Gudmundsdottir will resolve the request of Jinky for the disinterment of her father’s remains in a cemetery in Selfoss town, south Iceland.