Guatemalan police arrest John McAfee

John MacAfee, the software guru who went on the run last month after Belize police tried questioning him about the shooting of a neighbor, was arrested in Guatemala Wednesday.

|
Moises Castillo/AP
Software company founder John McAfee,(r), accompanied by his girlfriend "Sam," leaves after a press conference outside the Supreme Court in Guatemala City, Tuesday. McAfee, 67, who has been identified as a "person of interest" in the killing of his neighbor in Belize, 52-year-old Gregory Faull, was arrested on Wednesday for entering Guatemala illegally.

Software company founder John McAfee was arrested by police in Guatemala on Wednesday for entering the country illegally, hours after he said he would seek asylum in the Central American country.

Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said McAfee was detained by police at a hotel in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood with the help of Interpol agents. He offered no other details.

Earlier Wednesday, McAfee said he had formally requested asylum in Guatemala, claiming he is the victim of persecution in neighboring Belize where officials have said he is a person of interest in the killing of a fellow ex-pat.

McAfee was taken late Wednesday to an old, three-story building used to house migrants who enter Guatemala illegally.

The 67-year-old went on the run from Belize last month after officials tried to question him about the fatal shooting of a neighbor. McAfee had engaged in a series of clashes with neighbors and authorities over allegations he kept aggressive dogs, illegal weapons and drug paraphernalia in his beachfront home on a Belize island. McAfee has denied any wrongdoing and said he was being persecuted for refusing to donate to local politicians.

He dropped out of sight for weeks after police said they were seeking him, although he grabbed global attention by recounting his life on the run through a blog and regular phone calls with reporters. He crossed into Guatemala this week and told The Associated Press that he formally applied for asylum Wednesday.

"Yes, we are presenting this, and I want it to be clear, because of the persecution, not because of the murder," he told the AP.

Belizean officials have denied persecuting McAfee, and the country's prime minister has said he suspects McAfee is mentally unstable.

Police in Belize say there is no warrant for McAfee's arrest. Since there are no restrictions on his travels, it's unclear why he would need any special status in order to stay in Guatemala.

McAfee is wanted for questioning in connection with the killing of Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death in early November on the Belize island where both men lived.

Faull's home was a couple of houses down from the compound where McAfee kept several noisy dogs and armed guards and entertained a steady stream of young women brought in from the mainland. McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them, but denies killing Faull. Several of the dogs were poisoned shortly before Faull's killing.

The Faull family has said through a representative that the murder of their loved one on Ambergris Caye has gotten lost in the media frenzy provoked by McAfee's manipulation of the press through phone calls, emails and blog posts detailing his life on the lam.

For two weeks, McAfee refused to turn himself in to authorities in Belize and claimed to be hiding in plain sight, wearing disguises and watching as police raided his house. It was unclear, however, how much of what McAfee — a confessed practical joker — said and wrote was true.

McAfee hasn't provided details on how he crossed from Belize into Guatemala.

He had earlier said he didn't plan to leave Belize but ultimately did because he thought "Sam" was in danger, referring to the young woman who has accompanied him since he went into hiding.

McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus program, has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the anti-virus software company that is named after him in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.

He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $4 million of his $100 million fortune in the U.S. financial crisis. However, a story on the Gizmodo website quoted him as calling that claim "not very accurate at all." He has dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and producing herbal medications.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Guatemalan police arrest John McAfee
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1205/Guatemalan-police-arrest-John-McAfee
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe