Crime & Justice

Judge confirms McAfee died by suicide awaiting US extradition

Barcelona, Spain, Feb 9 (EFE).- A Spanish judge has concluded that John McAfee, creator of the eponymous computer antivirus software, committed suicide in his prison cell, although the family has appealed the decision.

McAfee, who was 75 years old, was found dead in June 2021 in his cell in Barcelona province on the same day that the National Court announced its decision to extradite him to the United States to stand trial for alleged tax evasion.

Two autopsies – the second at the request of McAfee’s family, who had raised questions about the initial findings – confirmed the initial hypothesis of suicide.

Judicial sources confirmed Efe on Wednesday that the judge concluded that McAfee committed suicide in Can Brians prison in Barcelona and agreed to file the case.

The judge also ruled that McAfee’s body, which remains in a morgue in Barcelona, would not be delivered to his relatives until the appeal filed by the family is resolved, the sources added.

McAfee was arrested in October 2020 at Barcelona airport when he was about to travel to Istanbul and had been in custody since then.

During the extradition hearing, the tech mogul, whose tax debt in the US amounts to more than $4 million, claimed to have paid “millions of dollars in taxes” and said he was the victim of political persecution for having denounced corruption in the US tax agency, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). EFE

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