McAfee: From hospital to detention centre
Software pioneer John McAfee was headed back to a Guatemalan immigration detention centre Thursday after doctors discharged him from a police hospital.
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Earlier Thursday, a neon green ambulance rushed the 67-year-old to the hospital just hours after Guatemalan officials rejected his bid for asylum. His attorney Karla Paz said he was being treated for cardiovascular problems.
McAfee suffered a nervous breakdown, attorney Telesforo Guerra told reporters, and tests revealed he did not have heart problems.
It was the latest dramatic twist in a saga that reads like a best-selling mystery, with poisoned dogs, a dead neighbour and international intrigue fuelled by weeks on the run.
Guatemala rejected McAfee's request for asylum Thursday, setting up his impending deportation to Belize.
Belize authorities have said they want to talk to McAfee about the November 11 shooting of his neighbor, American businessman Gregory Faull.
But McAfee's lawyers said their fight to keep him in Guatemala isn't over. They said they filed a request for an injunction with Guatemala's Supreme Court.
Standing outside the police hospital as ambulance lights flashed nearby, Paz said officials had unjustly rejected McAfee's petition without weighing the evidence.
"Due process has been violated. The right to defense has not been respected," she said,
McAfee's exit from Belize ends in detention
Meanwhile, police in Belize said they would be ready to meet McAfee at an airport in the country's capital if he's deported.
Under Belize law McAfee can be held for 48 hours without charges, Belize Police spokesman Raphael Martinez said.
Guatemalan authorities took McAfee into custody Wednesday on accusations of entering the country illegally.
After weeks in hiding, the 67-year-old Internet security pioneer emerged publicly Tuesday in Guatemala's capital, hundreds of miles from the Caribbean island in Belize where his next-door neighbour was found dead.
McAfee requested asylum in Guatemala, arguing that he left Belize to escape police persecution.
But Guatemalan authorities found there was no basis for his asylum request, presidential spokesman Francisco Cuevas said Thursday.
McAfee founded his namesake computer security software in 1987, initially running it out of his home in California. He sold his stake in McAfee Associates in 1994 and moved to Belize in 2008.
On November 9, he told police someone poisoned his four dogs there. To put them out of their misery, he shot each in the head and buried them on his property, according to a former girlfriend.
The dogs' barking and aggressive behavior was a frequent source of friction between the two neighbors.
Two days after the dogs were poisoned, Faull was found fatally shot in the head.
Belize police say they only want to talk with McAfee.
McAfee has said he had
nothing to do with Faull's death, and Belize authorities are out to get
him because he refused to pay a bribe to a politician months earlier. - CNN
