Mcafee in hospital after asylum denial
Software company founder John McAfee was hospitalized Thursday after being denied political asylum in Guatemala and his lawyers said they were making a last-ditch effort to keep him from being flown back to Belize for questioning about the killing of a fellow American expatriate.
McAfee told The Associated Press that he suffered chest pains overnight Wednesday but didn’t believe he had a heart attack.
A government doctor who examined him agreed, saying that McAfee’s heart rhythm and blood pressure were normal and that he appeared to be suffering from high stress.
McAfee was moved from an immigration centre to a police-run hospital Thursday afternoon after Guatemalan authorities said McAfee’s request for asylum had been denied. They did not explain why. Shortly after the decision was announced, McAfee issued a plea on his blog for the public to petition Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina to let him stay.
“Please email the President of Guatemala and beg him to allow the court system to proceed, to determine my status in Guatemala, and please support the political asylum that I am asking for,” the post read.
McAfee’s legal team said they were preparing to appeal the denial of asylum to the country’s constitutional court, a process that could give McAfee perhaps another day or two in Guatemala. The court would have to issue a decision within 48 hours.
McAfee’s complaints of chest pain prompted authorities to move him from the immigration centre where he had been held overnight. He had been taken to the centre after his arrest for illegally entering the country after a bizarre weeklong journey as a self-styled fugitive with an active blog and constant contact with the press.
Earlier Thursday, 67-year-old McAfee said he had been using Chinese herbal medicine since suffering a heart attack in 1993.
Belizean police spokesman Ra- phael Martinez said officials expected McAfee to be flown back to his country’s capital. Police want to question him about the fatal shooting of killing of Gregory Viant Faull, who was shot to death in early November on the Belize island where both men lived.
There is no warrant for McAfee’s arrest, so it is possible his self-initiated flight from Belizean authority could end up with him free to roam the Caribbean island where he lived for years, often clashing with neighbours and authorities over allegations he kept aggressive dogs, weapons and drug paraphernalia on his property.
The Faull family has said through a representative that the murder of their loved one on Ambergris Caye has got lost in the media frenzy provoked by McAfee’s manipulation of the media through phone calls, emails and blog posts detailing his life on the lam.
McAfee said U.S. Embassy officials had said they couldn’t help him with a request to be returned to the United States instead of Belize. McAfee said he had formally requested asylum in Guatemala because he fears for his safety in Belize because he has sensitive information about official corruption and refused to donate to local politicians.
McAfee went on the run last month after officials tried to question him about the killing of Faull, who was shot to death in early November.
McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Faull had complained about them, but denies killing Faull. Faull’s home was a couple of doors down from McAfee’s compound.
McAfee, the creator of the McAfee antivirus program, has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the antivirus 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, ultralight aircraft and producing herbal medications.