Anti-virus software founder McAfee arrives in US after deportation

Anti-virus software founder John McAfee has arrived in the US after his deportation from Guatemala.

A commercial jet carrying McAfee landed at Miami International Airport, spokesman Greg Chin said

He added that McAfee would be escorted by federal authorities after he cleared customs and would not appear in public parts of the terminal.

Frank Medina, a passenger on the American Airlines plane, said McAfee was taken off the plane before everyone else.

McAfee was expelled from Guatemala after sneaking into the country from Belize, where authorities want to question him over the murder of a neighbour.

Guatemalan immigration service spokesman Fernando Lucero said: “McAfee entered the country illegally. Guatemala is expelling him. Since his country of origin is the United States, Guatemala is expelling him to the United States.”

Before the flight from Guatemala City, McAfee said: “I’m free. I’m going to America.”

Dressed in a black suit and white shirt, he suggested his week-long detention in Guatemala for entering the country clandestinely had taken its toll.

“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 said.

In one of the most highly publicised flights from police questioning since OJ Simpson led police on televised low-speed car chase, McAfee constantly blogged and spoke to reporters about his life on the run.

McAfee was detained last week for immigration violations after he sneaked into Guatemala from Belize. He apparently crossed at an unguarded rural spot along the border, but a judge this week ruled his detention illegal and ordered him freed.

McAfee said on Sunday 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.”

Police in Belize want to question McAfee over the fatal shooting of a US expatriate who lived near McAfee’s home on a Belizean island in November.

The creator of the McAfee antivirus program has denied involvement in the killing. Belizean authorities have urged him to show up for questioning, but have not lodged any formal charges against him.

McAfee is an acknowledged practical joker who has dabbled in yoga, ultra-light aircraft and the production of herbal medications. He has said he feared he would be killed if he turned himself in to Belizean authorities.

Belize’s prime minister, Dean Barrow, has expressed doubts about McAfee’s mental state, saying: “I don’t want to be unkind to the gentleman, but I believe he is extremely paranoid, even bonkers.”

British-born McAfee said on Sunday that returning to the United States “is my only hope now”, but he later added: “I would be happy to go to England. I have dual citizenship.”

He was in hiding in Belize for weeks after police pronounced him a person of interest in the killing of Gregory Viant Faull. McAfee acknowledges that his dogs were bothersome and that Mr Faull had complained about them days before some of the dogs were poisoned, but denies killing him. Mr Faull’s home was a couple of houses down from McAfee’s compound on Ambergris Caye, off Belize’s Caribbean coast.

McAfee has led an eccentric life since he sold his stake in the software company named after him in the early 1990s and moved to Belize about three years ago to lower his taxes.

He told The New York Times in 2009 that he had lost all but $4m of his $100m fortune in the US financial crisis. However, a story on the Gizmodo website quoted him as describing that claim as “not very accurate at all”.