On the Lam, John McAfee Claims He Is Innocent
Anti-virus maker John McAfee will not turn himself in for questioning about the murder of his neighbor Gregory Faull for which he is "a person of interest," but it's not because he did it, he says. McAfee claims he is innocent in an interview with Wired's Joshua Davis, who managed to talk with him because he had previously been working on a story about McAfee about "his claims against the government and the government’s charges against him." However, the circumstances of his quick escape don't make McAfee look like an innocent party. For example, as he saw the police approaching he hid by burying himself in the sand with a cardboard box over his head, he told Davis. And, he says he will not turn himself in while he hides "somewhere" in Belize. Somewhere he can talk to tech reporters, to give his side of the story. In fact, the timing of the investigation is curious with both Gizmodo and Wired working with McAfee to write feature-length pieces about his run-ins with the cops. Not a bad time to have media contacts?
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McAfee maintains he doesn't know anything about the incident "other than I heard he had been shot," he added. He also thinks the people who got Faull meant to kill him. He claims the police are framing him, suggesting they poisoned his dogs in an effort to make it look like Faull did it. Faull had filed a complaint with the Mayor's office about them last week. The dogs were poisoned Friday and the murder happened Sunday. But, McAfee doesn't think Faull did it. "This is not something he would ever do," McAfee said. "I mean, he’s an angry sort of guy but he would never hurt a dog." Instead, he thinks this is all part of a plot to kill him. "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," he told Davis. "They want to silence me. I am not well liked by the prime minister. I am just a thorn in everybody’s side."
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By "thorn" McAfee might be alluding to his various run-ins with the police, who have raided his house multiple times. On one occasion they found guns and drugs, but later dropped the charges. (For that McAfee is suing the police on false charges.) On another they confirmed he associates with notorious Belize gang members After that second raid, McAfee hid from the authorities, which is not the knee-jerk reaction of someone who did absolutely nothing wrong.
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Davis says McAfee is a prime suspect, however police told The Associate Press he is just a "person of interest" at this point. "It's too early in the investigation. To say he is a suspect would be a bold statement," Raphael Martinez, spokesman for Belize's Ministry of National Security told The AP's Adriana Gomez Licon. As for McAfee's assertion that the police framed him, the head of Belize's Gang Suppression Unit says that has "absolutely no truth," he told Davis. "This guy amazes me every day. We don’t have anything personal against Mr. McAfee. There is no need for us to poison dogs."
