BELIZE CITY, (Reuters) – Belize’s prime minister yesterday urged anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee to help the country’s police with a murder inquiry, calling McAfee “bonkers” for recent media statements.
“I don’t want to be unkind, but he seems to be extremely paranoid – I would go so far as to say bonkers,” Prime Minister Dean Barrow said in Belize City. “He ought to man up and respect our laws and go in and talk to the police.”
Belizean police want to question McAfee, 67, about the murder of his neighbor and fellow U.S. citizen, Gregory Viant Faull, 52, with whom McAfee had quarreled.
Police have been unable to track down McAfee since finding Faull dead on Sunday in his house on Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast. In an interview on Tuesday, McAfee said he had gone into hiding because he believed Belizean authorities were trying to frame him for Faull’s murder.
“You can say I’m paranoid about it, but they will kill me, there is no question. They’ve been trying to get me for months,” Wired magazine’s website quoted McAfee as saying. “I am not well liked by the prime minister.”
According to the magazine, which has published details of several interviews with the entrepreneur, McAfee says he has been riding in boats, hunkering down on the floorboards of taxis, and sleeping in a bed that he said was infested with lice.
Since he went into hiding, McAfee has repeatedly told Wired he had nothing to do with Faull’s death. Explaining his actions, McAfee said he does not want to give himself up because he is afraid the authorities will torture or kill him.
But McAfee said they would track him down in the end. On Wednesday, the magazine said that McAfee claimed to have dyed his hair, eyebrows, beard, and mustache jet black.
“I’ll probably look like a murderer, unfortunately,” it quoted him as saying.
