British-born US technology entrepreneur John McAfee died on Wednesday by suicide in a Barcelona prison after the Spanish high court authorised his extradition to the US on tax evasion charges, his lawyer told Reuters.
McAfee’s lawyer, Javier Villalba, said the anti-virus software pioneer died by hanging as his nine months in prison brought him to despair.
During a court hearing last month, McAfee, 75, said that given his age, he would spend the rest of his life in jail if convicted in the US. “I am hoping that the Spanish court will see the injustice of this,” he said, adding “the US wants to use me as an example”.
McAfee had lived for years on the run from US authorities, some of that time aboard a megayacht. He was indicted in Tennessee on tax evasion charges and was charged in a cryptocurrency fraud case in New York.
McAfee was detained on October 3 at the Barcelona airport as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul with a British passport, a Spanish police source said at the time.
McAfee worked for Nasa, Xerox and Lockheed Martin before launching the world’s first commercial anti-virus in 1987. Intel bought the business in 2011, when McAfee himself no longer had any involvement.
