Spain court shelves probe into John McAfee prison death

A Spanish court has closed a probe into the death of software mogul John McAfee at a prison near Barcelona in 2021, ruling he committed suicide, court documents showed Friday.

The 75-year-old founder of the popular anti-virus McAfee was found dead in his cell back in June 23, 2021.

Just hours earlier, a Spanish court had authorised his extradition to the United States on tax evasion charges.

Although an autopsy determined he had died by suicide, his widow demanded further checks and another autopsy, arguing that McAfee was not suicidal.

But in a ruling dated July 24 that was made public on Friday, the court investigating McAfee's death said there are "no indications of anything other than a violent death of suicidal origin, nothing at all".

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Nothing in the final autopsy that questioned the conclusions of the original findings, the court added in its ruling, which cannot be appealed.

McAfee was arrested at Barcelona airport in October 2020 just before boarding a flight to Istanbul.

According to an indictment filed in a US court, he failed to file tax returns between 2014 and 2018, despite earning millions from consulting work, cryptocurrencies and selling the rights to his life story.

Had he been convicted, he could have faced up to 30 years in prison.

McAfee in 1987 founded the computer security software company and ran it for seven years before resigning.

His life after that became a headline-grabbing mix of controversies involving drugs, weapons and even murder.

McAfee moved to Belize in Central America and made headlines when his next-door neighbour was mysteriously murdered in 2012. The crime was never solved.

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McAfee claimed he was nowhere near the victim at the time, but local police wanted to interview him as a person of interest in the case.

After the police found him living with a 17-year-old girl and discovered a large arsenal of weapons in his home, McAfee fled Belize.

Source: AFP