Anti-virus software founder John McAfee was released from a detention center in Guatemala City this Wednesday and was escorted by Guatemala’s immigration officials and police trucks to the city airport, where he was put in a coach-class seat on the commercial flight for Miami.
The escort to the airport which was accompanied by a group of journalists and two police trucks with sirens blaring marked the last chapter for Mr. McAfee’s month-long hiding to avoid police about the killing of an American expatriate in neighboring Belize.
“McAfee entered the country illegally,” immigration service spokesman Fernando Lucero said. “Guatemala is expelling him. Since his country of origin is the United States, Guatemala is expelling him to the United States.”
Dressed in a black suit and white shirt, McAfee said: “I’m free. I’m going to America. All I can tell you is I’m 10 years older, and I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just going to Miami.” He suggested his weeklong detention in Guatemala for entering the country clandestinely had taken its toll on him.
McAfee also said last Sunday in an interview that he wanted to return to the United States and “settle down to whatever normal life” he can. The 67-year-old said “I simply would like to live comfortably day by day, fish, swim, enjoy my declining years,” he added.
His 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend, Samantha Vanegas, was not with him on the ride to the airport, though she later showed up at the terminal. Known as “Sam,” she was seen earlier on Wednesday leaving the detention facility crying, after taking breakfast to McAfee. On the blog he has been posting on for the last two weeks, McAfee wrote that “I have been forcibly separated from Sam,” but claimed she would be coming to the United States later.
McAfee was detained last week for immigration violations after he sneaked into Guatemala from Belize, where authorities sought to question him about the murder of a neighbor. He apparently crossed at a rural, unguarded spot along the border, but a judge this week ruled his detention illegal and ordered him freed.
(Ref: Yahoo Finance)
