The widow of John McAfee, the British-
American tycoon who died in a Spanish prison this week while awaiting extradition to the US, on Friday demanded a “thorough investigation” of his death, saying her husband did not appear suicidal when they last spoke.
Authorities in Spain are conducting an autopsy on McAfee’s body, but have said that everything at the scene in his cell indicated that the 75-year-old killed himself.
Photo: Reuters
An official source familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press that a suicide note had been found in McAfee’s pocket. The source, who was not authorized to speak about an ongoing judicial inquiry, refused to comment on the content of the note.
McAfee’s Spanish lawyer, Javier Villalba, said that the family had not been informed by authorities about the note.
In her first public remarks since the software entrepreneur’s death on Wednesday, McAfee’s widow, Janice McAfee, said she wanted a “thorough investigation” to provide “answers about this was able to happen.”
Photo: Reuters
“His last words to me were ‘I love you and I will call you in the evening,’” the 38-year-old told reporters outside the Brians 2 penitentiary northwest of Barcelona, where she recovered her late husband’s belongings.
She said they spoke earlier on the day he was found dead.
“Those words are not words of somebody who is suicidal,” she added.
John McAfee was arrested at the Barcelona airport in October last year on a warrant issued by prosecutors in Tennessee who were seeking up to three decades of imprisonment for allegedly evading more than US$4 million in taxes.
The day before he was found dead, Spain’s National Court had announced that it was agreeing to his extradition to the US, but the decision was not final.
POLITICAL CHARGES
“We had a plan of action already in place to appeal that decision,” Janice McAfee told reporters. “I blame the US authorities for this tragedy: Because of these politically motivated charges against him my husband is now dead.”
The National Court judge said John McAfee had provided no evidence to back his allegations that he was being politically persecuted.
“On the contrary, according to his own testimony, he took part in primaries of a certain party to defend his convictions with a result little favorable to him,” the judge wrote in the ruling seen by AP.
In an e-mailed statement, the US State Department confirmed for the first time the tycoon’s death, offering the family condolences. It said: “We are closely monitoring local authorities’ investigation into the cause of death. We stand ready to provide all appropriate assistance to the family. Out of respect to the family during this difficult time, we have no further comment.”
Results of McAfee’s autopsy could take “days or weeks,” authorities have said.
SEVERAL CHILDREN
The couple reportedly met in 2012 in Miami and married the following year. John McAfee had several children from previous relationships, Janice McAfee said.
The entrepreneur had not been connected with the companies that took over the antivirus software he built after he sold his shares in the 1990s. That early success had made McAfee rich and followed him in his troubled biography.
NEIGHBOR’S MURDER
In 2012, he was sought for questioning in connection with the murder of his neighbor in Belize, but was never charged with a crime. The controversy did not stop him from making long-shot runs for the US presidency starting in 2016.
However, it was his more recent tax problems that kept him away from the US, the country where the British-born entrepreneur was raised and had built his early success.
The Tennessee prosecutors’ indictments from last year showed that the tycoon allegedly failed to declare income made by promoting cryptocurrencies, attending speaking engagements and selling the rights for a documentary on his eventful life.
“Even though he was born in England, America was his home,” Janice McAfee said. “He came there when he was a child. He had his first girlfriend there, his first case, you know, his first job. He made his first millions there and he wanted to be there. But, you know, politics just wouldn’t allow for that to happen.”
John McAfee’s social media postings indicated that he had chosen a northeastern Spanish coastal resort town as his base in Europe at least since late 2019.
“All John wanted to do was spend his remaining years fishing and drinking,” his widow said on Friday. “He had hope that things would work out. We knew that there would be an uphill battle to continue to fight this situation. But he’s a fighter... And anybody that knows John, that knows him even a little bit, knows that about him.”
“He was just so loving. He had a big heart and he just loved people and he just wanted to have peace in his life,” Janice McAfee added. “My prayers are that his soul has found the peace in death that he could not find in life.”
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass
Germany is to establish its first-ever national pavilion at Semicon Taiwan, which starts tomorrow in Taipei, as the country looks to raise its profile and deepen semiconductor ties with Taiwan as global chip demand accelerates. Martin Mayer, a semiconductor investment expert at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), Germany’s international economic promotion agency, said before leaving for Taiwan that the nation is a crucial partner in developing Germany’s semiconductor ecosystem. Germany’s debut at the international semiconductor exhibition in Taipei aims to “show presence” and signal its commitment to semiconductors, while building trust with Taiwanese companies, government and industry associations, he said. “The best outcome
Semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to double this year, as manufacturers in the industry are keen to expand production to meet strong global demand for artificial intelligence applications, according to SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain. Speaking at a news conference before the opening of Semicon Taiwan trade show tomorrow, SEMI director of industry research and statistics Clark Tseng (曾瑞榆) said semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to grow by an annual 100 percent this year, beating an earlier estimate of 70 percent growth. He said that Taiwan received a boost from a
RSS