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Subscribe to RSSFounder of McAfee security software John McAfee emerged from hiding in Guatemala where he plans to seek asylum. McAfee claims he is being persecuted by police in Belize where he is considered a person of interest in the killing of another American.
GUATEMALA CITY – Software guru John McAfee, who is fighting deportation to Belize, was rushed to the hospital in Guatemala on Thursday after his lawyer said he suffered two mild heart attacks.
McAfee was carried out on a stretcher from an immigration service cottage where he was detained after crossing illegally into Guatemala from neighboring Belize.
Police in Belize want to question McAfee in connection with his neighbor's murder.
Earlier a Guatemala official said the government was going to try to send McAfee back to Belize.
McAfee was posting on his blog whoismcafee.com when he suffered the heart attacks, said the lawyer, Telesforo Guerra. "I don't think a heart attack prevents one from using one's blog,'' he added.
Guerra's assistant, Karla Paz, said she had found McAfee lying on the ground, unable to move his body or speak.
McAfee -- famous for the anti-virus software that still bears his name -- crossed into Guatemala with his 20-year-old girlfriend to evade authorities in Belize, who want to quiz him as "a person of interest" about the killing of fellow American Gregory Faull.
"He entered the country illegally and we are going to seek his expulsion for this crime," Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said.
McAfee, 67, was detained by Guatemalan police and a member of Interpol at the upscale Intercontinental hotel in Guatemala City.
Government spokesman Francisco Cuevas said the entrepreneur would be expelled to Belize.
Erratic behavior
One of Silicon Valley's first entrepreneurs to build an Internet fortune, McAfee made millions of dollars through antivirus software.
McAfee's behavior has been increasingly erratic in recent years but there is no international arrest warrant for him. Police in Belize say he is not a prime suspect.
Fernando Lucero, spokesman for Guatemala's immigration department, said immediate deportation had been ruled out.
Guerra was seeking an injunction to have him released and McAfee said on his blog that he would not now be returned to the Belize border until a higher judge reviewed the case.
John McAfee, creator of an anti-virus software and resident of Belize, is hiding from authorities who want to charge him for the shooting death of his neighbor. McAfee, who has a reputation for being bizarre, said, "I think that eccentricity in some people makes for a more interesting world but eccentricity does not make a murderer." NBC's Michelle Franzen reports.
Reporter's iPhone photo reveals John McAfee's location
McAfee was taken to a residence belonging to the immigration department guarded by a small group of police.
He had been seeking political asylum in Guatemala, which has been embroiled in a long-running territorial dispute with Belize.
Residents and neighbors on the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye, where McAfee has lived in Belize for about four years, say he is eccentric, impulsive, volatile and at times unstable, citing his love of guns and young women.
'Wild country'
McAfee has said he believes authorities in Belize will kill him if he turns himself in for questioning. Belize's prime minister has denied this and called him paranoid and "bonkers."
"It's a wild, wild country," McAfee told Reuters in an interview in his hotel room just hours before his detention.
Software guru John McAfee held in Guatemala
"Everyone sees one part of Belize," he said. "They think it's a wonderful, peaceful, lovely place, blue waters, so McAfee has got to be crazy. Maybe I am crazy. If I were, I wouldn't know."
In Belize, he was often seen with armed bodyguards dressed in camouflage, pistols tucked into his belt. McAfee's slain neighbor had complained about the loud barking of dogs that guarded his exclusive beachside compound.
His run-in with authorities in Belize is a world away from a successful life in the United States, where the former Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in the late 1980s. McAfee has no relationship now with the company, which was sold to Intel Corp.
There was already a case against McAfee in Belize for possession of illegal firearms, and police had previously raided his property on suspicion he was running a lab to make illegal synthetic narcotics.
He says he has not taken drugs since 1983.
"(Before then) I took drugs constantly, 24 hours of the day, I took them for years and years. I was the worst drug abuser on the planet," McAfee said. "Then I finally went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and that was the end of it."
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