'Bonkers' John McAfee dodges Belize police

HUNTED software guru John McAfee is in hiding, changing locations and phones constantly - all while in the company of a young woman. 

ANTI-virus software pioneer John McAfee is in hiding, unarmed and accompanied only by a young woman, changing locations and telephones frequently to stay one step ahead of a Belize police.

Belizean police said they want to question McAfee, 67, about the murder of his neighbour and Florida native Gregory Faull, who was found dead in a pool of blood at his home by his housekeeper on Sunday.

"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 a media statement. "He ought to man up and respect our laws and go in and talk to the police."

But while he's been on the run, McAfee has been in almost constant contact with a variety of media agencies.

McAfee, the creator of the antivirus program of the same name, told CNBC television that he had been "accused of something I didn't do".

A police report said that Faull, 52, was shot in the back of the head. There were no signs of a break-in, and a laptop and mobile phone were missing.

"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."

He said he was staying on the move out of fear for his own safety, worried that police want to "shake him down" and extort money from him.

But Belize police have scoffed at the idea.

"We are looking for McAfee to interrogate him," police spokesman Raphael Martinez said. He emphasised that McAfee was "not suspected of murder".

"We want to encourage him to come in,'' Martinez said.

"If he feels threatened, we need to tell him, 'Get someone to go along with you, but come in. Let's solve this crime and you can free yourself'.''

McAfee told Associated Press in a telephone interview he did have differences with the dead man.

"I barely knew him, I barely spoke ten words to him in the last three years,'' McAfee said, speaking on a cellphone.

"Certainly he was not my favorite person and I was not his. He was a heavy drinker and an annoyance. But the world is full of annoyances; if we killed all of our annoyances, there would be nobody left,'' McAfee said.

Police raided McAfee's mansion on Ambergris Caye, an island off the northeastern coast of Belize, late on Sunday to question the millionaire about the murder.

Three people who worked for McAfee were being interrogated.

McAfee says their detention is part of a bid to pressure him to hand himself in.

"Of course, and it's almost working,'' McAfee said in the phone interview with AP. "I'm sitting here, the young woman who is with me now and who has been by my side, and trying to keep me upbeat through this, I said, 'You know, I'll just call and say I'll turn myself in, just let these people go.' And she said, 'Absolutely not, they will kill you'.''

"I keep moving constantly, sir ... and I keep changing telephones constantly, this phone will expire shortly,'' he said.

No further details are known about the young woman in his company.

But a Gizmodo investigation of the fugitive playboy's online blogs and social postings have revealed a sordid lifestyle on his remote island getaway with a "harem" of young women - some as young as 15.

Earlier in the year, police searched McAfee's mansion looking for weapons and drugs, and detained him for several hours. The software millionaire, however, claimed he was arrested because he refused to make a donation to a local politician's campaign.

McAfee, who made millions when he sold his anti-virus software company in the early 1990s, has been living in Belize for the past four years.

Wired Magazine said McAfee had been hiding on his property during the police raid, burying himself in the sand with a cardboard box over his head so he could breathe.

"It was extraordinarily uncomfortable," McAfee told the magazine. "But they will kill me if they find me."

He also said he had dyed his hair, eyebrows, beard and mustache jet black.

"I have modified my appearance in a radical fashion,'' McAfee said, "I'll probably look like a murderer, unfortunately.''

Asked about the shooting of his neighbour, McAfee said he knew "nothing" other than he had been shot. He even said he was worried that Faull's killers had actually been looking for him.

"Under no circumstances am I going to willingly talk to the police in this country," McAfee added.

McAfee also contacted The Associated Press from an email account he gave to a journalist in May.

"Suspect or no, I believe the (Belize) government wants me out of the way,'' he said.

"Too many people have died in custody in this country so I intend to do nothing that puts me in their custody.''

Prime minister Barrow called McAfee's statements "nonsense," noting he had "never met the man" and that the media attention McAfee had attracted was offering him "the best possible safeguard."

"It's not as if the police have said he is a suspect and certainly there is no question at this point of charges pending," Barrow said. "The fact that this is smeared across international headlines means the police would have to act extremely cautiously in the full glare of the public spotlight."