BELIZE CITY – Prime Minister Dean Barrow on Wednesday urged anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee, wanted for questioning in the murder of a neighbor, to turn himself in to Belizean authorities.
McAfee, 67, told CNBC television Tuesday that he was moving every four hours to avoid police who want to question him about the murder of fellow American Gregory Faull, a Florida native who was found dead at his home in a pool of blood.
“Mr McAfee is a person of interest,” Barrow said in a phone interview broadcast on national radio and television. “His reaction to being a person of interest is, to put it very mildly, hugely exaggerated. He is now, I think, visiting all sorts of calumnies on our country and on our security forces and his behavior is to be deprecated.”
McAfee, founder of the eponymous anti-virus company, told CNBC that he was on the run out of concern for his safety, and that he had been “accused of something I didn’t do.” He also told the cable television channel that he was worried police wanted to extort money from him.
Barrow said McAfee’s fears were unfounded.
“Come forward man,” the prime minister said.
“It is now hugely public and you surely do not expect anyone to believe that the police want to kill you, so that if you come in for questioning you are going to be murdered.
“That is utter and complete nonsense. The spotlight is very much on this issue. Come in and have the police do their job and if it is that you are truly innocent, you are free to go.”
A police report said that Faull, 52, was shot in the back of the head. There were no signs of a break-in, and a laptop and cell phone were missing.
McAfee, who made millions when he sold his anti-virus software company in the early 1990s, has been living in Belize for the past four years.
Police raided McAfee’s mansion on Ambergris Caye, an island off the northeastern coast of Belize, late Sunday.
Earlier in the year, police searched McAfee’s mansion looking for weapons and drugs, and detained him for several hours. The software millionaire however claimed he was arrested because he refused to make a donation to a local politician’s campaign.