John McAfee was not suicidal, says antivirus software mogul’s widow

(CNN) – The controversial’s widow antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee She assured her husband was not a suicide bomber, and blamed US authorities for “this tragedy” after he was found dead in his cell in a prison near Barcelona on Wednesday.

McAfee, 75, had multiple problems with the law and was awaiting extradition after being charged with tax evasion in the United States last year.

Speaking to reporters out of prison on Friday, Janice McAfee demanded a full investigation, saying she wanted “answers on how this could have happened.”

The cause of McAfee’s death is under investigation, a spokeswoman for the High Court of Justice of Catalonia told CNN this week.

Janice McAfee’s attorney, Javier Villalba, told reporters on Friday that his client is waiting for the official autopsy to be performed, adding that the family has requested a second and independent autopsy.

“I blame the United States authorities for this tragedy. For these politically motivated charges against him. My husband is dead, ”Janice said in a statement.

“His last words to me were: I love you and I will call you at night,” Janice said. He would never have given up this way, he would never take his life this way, never.

His death came after a three-judge tribunal of the Spanish National Court in Madrid ruled this week that McAfee could be extradited to the United States to face the charges against him there. That decision could have been appealed to a larger panel of judges in the same court, according to court documents.

Janice said Friday that the Spanish court’s decision to extradite him did not surprise them and that they had a plan to appeal.

McAfee had a cellmate in prison, but that person was not in the cell at the time he was found dead, a prison official, who asked not to be named, told CNN. The official added that the other person was carrying out other normal activities at the prison. When asked if the authorities had imposed special surveillance measures on McAfee in his cell, the officer said: “I do not know.”

McAfee was arrested in Spain in October after being accused in the United States of tax evasion months earlier. He allegedly did not file taxes for four years despite earning millionaire income between 2014 and 2018 from promoting cryptocurrencies, consulting jobs, talks, and selling his life story rights to a documentary, according to court documents. The amount he owed was not specified in the indictment.

The Spanish judges approved his extradition to face the charges corresponding to fiscal years 2016, 2017 and 2018.

McAfee, founder of the eponymous antivirus software company, to which he no longer belonged, was also indicted in March on other counts of fraud and money laundering. The United States Department of Justice claimed that he and a business partner participated in a scheme that made more than $ 13 million by falsely promoting cryptocurrencies to unsuspecting investors.